Why Money Will Never Buy Happiness
As explained by psychology, sociology and neuroscience
“When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” — John Lennon
Beyond the legendary Beatle’s sage-like focus on happiness, the wisdom of the quote lies in his understanding that defiance of societal convention can be required to achieve happiness in life.
Human beings have strived for happiness and pleasure for as long as they have walked the earth, and every culture takes a unique approach. Whether you believe it to be dead today or not, the American Dream always relied upon a foundation of wealth creation, professional success, family development and the creature comforts of materialism.
The Dream was constructed around the idea that hard work, dedication and perseverance would enable us all to grab our rightful share of happiness. If we worked hard enough in school and our jobs, we would then be able to build a family and surround ourselves with possessions that bring us pleasure, satisfaction and the ever-elusive happiness.
It may not be 2.5 kids or a white-picket-fence house anymore, but America’s obsession with image and trademark individualism relies heavily upon professional success and materialism.
It turns out, however, that there’s a problem with this simple, linear narrative. As our nation has grown wealthier (in aggregate), our level of happiness has remained the same. This is what has been described by economists as the “Easterlin Paradox.”
In “Social,” Psychologist and Social Neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman explains that the “study examined changing U.S. income levels between 1946 and 1990 and compared these to changing reports of well-being…Income, after controlling for inflation, more than doubled during this time, and yet well-being did not increase at all.”
Experts would even argue that our well-being has slid backward in disturbing ways over the last several decades. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley drives this point home quite well in her psychological exploration of trauma recovery in “Widen the Window.”
Stanley points to America’s high rates of firearm deaths, mass shootings and violent victimizations alongside substantial increases in major depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicide.
“One third of Americans have abused or been dependent on alcohol at some point,” writes Stanley. “The United States also has the world’s highest drug-death rate, which has grown since 1990 by more than 650 percent — leading in 2016 and 2017 to declines in U.S. life expectancy, below many of our socioeconomic peers. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 — with opioids causing two-thirds of them. Suicides in the United States increased by a third between 1999 and 2017…Suicide remains one of the ten leading causes of death for Americans.”
There are numerous causes for the growth in substance abuse and suicide in America, but one thing is for sure: It is not evidence of emotional well-being.
Why Doesn’t Money Buy Us Happiness?
Unfortunately, Americans were sold a Dream that hinges on some faulty assumptions. In particular, the Dream misled us to believe that wealth, possessions or achievements are intrinsically valuable and would leave us fulfilled and happy.
“We tend to think of rewards as material things (food, shelter, iPhones), and we think of those things as having objective value,” says Lieberman. “Ten dollars is always better than five, and five is always better than zero. But materials rewards are rewarding only because our brains evolved to experience those things as rewarding.”
As everyone who has purchased a much-hyped new technology knows, the elation that you feel after you unbox the shiny, new tech fades rather quickly. This normalization of what is “new” or “novel” actually comes down to a matter of physiology and neuroscience.
“Adaptation is, in part, just a property of neurons: Nerve cells respond vigorously to new stimuli, but gradually they “habituate,” firing less to stimuli that they have become used to. It is change that contains vital information, not steady states. Human beings, however, take adaptation to cognitive extremes. We don’t just habituate, we recalibrate. We create for ourselves a world of targets, and each time we hit one we replace it with another. After a string of successes, we aim higher,” writes Social Psychologist and NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt in the “Happiness Hypothesis.”
This is what has enabled companies like Apple and Samsung to make billions of dollars by releasing new smartphone models every year. While admittedly some of us buy these products for the (often slightly) enhanced features and capabilities, for many of us, the primary pull is either novelty or what the product says about our status.
“Conspicuous consumption refers to things that are visible to others and that are taken as markers of a person’s relative success. These goods are subject to a kind of arms race, where their value comes not so much from their objective properties as from the statement that they make about the owner,” writes Haidt, pulling from Cornell Economist Robert Frank.
To be clear, this inevitable loss of luster applies to more than fancy technology upgrades. It applies to any material acquisition, wealth and major achievements. Each is underpinned by the adjustment or “recalibration” to the new normal, which explains our desire to constantly outdo each other with displays of status and wealth (per Haidt’s example, if everyone suddenly has a Timex, it’s time to level up to a Rolex).
It’s what’s known as the “Hedonic Treadmill.”
“On an exercise treadmill, you can increase the speed all you want, but you stay in the same place,” explains Haidt. “In life, you can work as hard as you want, and accumulate all the riches, fruit trees, and concubines you want, but you can’t get ahead. Because you can’t change your ‘natural and usual state of tranquility,’ the riches you accumulate will just raise your expectations and leave you no better off than before…Always wanting more than we have, we run and run and run, like hamsters on a wheel.”
Where Does This Leave Us?
To those of us who have put in long, hard hours on the hedonic treadmill, grinding away at the office to get the bonus to buy that shiny new toy, it is no surprise that we have been chasing an ever-receding horizon. The comforts and pleasures that wealth, status and luxury possessions afford are always slipping through our fingers.
I would argue that there is a negative, B plot hidden within the script of the American Dream. By attempting to achieve happiness through external means and ever more luxurious possessions, is it not actually an admission that we are trying to fill something that is lacking inside of us?
Before we set every goal or try to obtain that which others flaunt before our eyes, our internal monologue always tricks us into pursuing the same path. “If I could just get X, then I’ll be happy.” But bigger houses beget even bigger houses. Once the treadmill restarts, the goal posts just move farther down the field.
It turns out that our attempts to reach for happiness on the outside are actually attempts to fill the loneliness, anxiety and emptiness that we feel on the inside. A recent group of psychologists, sociologists and neuroscientists have begun to tap into the power of Eastern philosophy to enhance and update theories within Western psychology.
“If you look to others for fulfillment,
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”
- Tao Te Ching — Lao-tzu
In the next story in this series, I will explore how Carl Rogers’ patient-centered psychology and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl’s psychology of optimal experience enables us to reach fulfillment and happiness from within.
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