Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET What Price Happiness? by MARGARET DICKSON We all tell ourselves and our children that money cannot buy happiness. We may also say to ourselves or even out loud that, “yes, that is true,” but that money can certainly make us more comfortable in our unhappiness. Either way, most of us probably believe that old axiom, or at least pretend we do. Turns out, there may indeed be a price on happiness, an actual dollar amount. It is $75,000. This from a Nobel laureate, no less. Princeton University economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman studied data gathered from a Gallup and Healthways poll over the last two years, asking nearly half a million Americans how they rate their own lives from being perfectly wonderful to perfectly awful. Lots of us, including moi, are a bit skittish about touchy-feely evaluations, but at the same time, we recognize our own feelings, and many of us recognize in them others to whom we are close. I generally know how I am feeling about things on any given day, and I have overheard the Precious Jewels on many occasions say, “Mom’s in a great mood today” or “I would not tell her that right now.” Our variable day to day moods, dependent on what is happening in our families and at work, are one sort of happiness or lack of happiness, but there is another more penetrating kind of happiness. That is where the $75,000 comes in. It plays into how you think your life is going overall. Are your family relationships fulfilling? Does your work bring you challenges and satisfaction? Do you enjoy your friends? What interests you, and do you find intellectual stimulation in pursuing your interests? Are you physically and mentally healthy? The study finds that happiness is based more on issues like relationships and health than money. On a daily basis, we are more concerned about what is going on with us and the people around us than we are with money. But if the money is not there, the relationships, health and work issues that affect us all are more acute. For example, people who are divorced and at an income level of less than $1,000 a month feel sadness and stress at double the rate of people who make more than $3,000 a month. This is confirmed by looking at folks with asthma. About 22 percent of higher income asthma sufferers say they are unhappy as compared to 41 percent of lower income asthma patients. It seems that how we feel about ourselves is significantly influenced by our incomes. Higher income may not make us less grumpy in the morning, but it does make us feel that our lives are working. Our relationships and our health may be just about the same as those with folks at lower income levels, but higher income makes us more able to deal with whatever is happening in our lives. According to Deaton and Kahneman, “High incomes don’t bring you happiness, but they do bring you a life you think is better.” So what constitutes that better life? It may be the flexibility that higher income brings. Higher income will not make your marriage perfect, your boss a sweetheart or your children all above average, but it does confer the pleasure of going to an occasional movie or dining out with friends. It means that while money is always a factor in everyone’s lives, you can enjoy the occasional treat and maybe even a splurge from time to time without generating additional stress. And what about a smaller income in a higher income locale? Even with less cash to spend, a higher income location means more amenities like schools, parks and cultural offerings which add richness to life regardless of income. Are we happier if we make more and more money? Not really, say Deaton and Kahneman. We may feel better about ourselves, our abilities and where we are headed in our working lives if we have more money, but more money does not fix whatever might dog us in other areas of our lives. We love getting raises, but they do not necessarily make our spouses more loving or our children behave. So why is $75,000 the magic number? Why do folks below that level report being less happy than folks above it? Deaton and Kahneman can only speculate why $75,000 — which about one third of American households are above — is the level at which we can afford to be less concerned about money than about our individual circumstances, our temperaments and what my grandmother would have called “our stations in life.” Says Deaton, “It does seem to me a plausible number at which people would think that money is not an issue.” If that is the level at which the financial burden seems to be lifted or at least lightened for most of us, will we have to adjust it for inflation? MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Dive Instruction q p (910) 482-DIVE Dive Charters Equipment Sales and Service 116 Old St. • Behind Docks • www.carolinacoastdiving.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM The Area’s One and Only True Hispanic Restaurant! FOGATA LA Colombian Restaurant • Freshly Prepared from Authentic Recipes • Beef, Chicken, Pork, Seafood, Soups & Salads • Delicious Menu with Something for Everyone! Come Join Us for Lunch or Dinner (and breakfast on weekends!) 864-8598 500C N. McPherson Church Rd. OCTOBER 13-19, 2010 UCW 5