While a definitive response to the query “What is happiness?” will permanently stay elusive, Drs. Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, of Princeton University, have attempted to find contentment in numbers. Specifically, the physician duo investigated replies to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI) questionnaire. Curiously, households in the U.S. gaining exactly $75,000 per year were found to be most joyful. Article resource: People are happiest at $75,000 per year, says study
But I do not totally agree with them. If a person doesn't know how to feel contentment he can never be happy no matter what he achieve in his life. Sure thing $75, 000 a year is really such a great money. But the happiness that you feel is only shallow. This maybe cliché but if we do not feel any love for ourselves and to others we're like zombies in this world. Seems alive in the outside but dead deep down inside
Char has a point. The poor have a higher level of angst not because their material needs aren't satisfied, but because their basic needs aren't satisfied. There is something to money bringing less stress (and therefore more happiness).
I don't think you could find a better example of materialism, a doctrine that material success and progress are the highest values in life.
It doesn't matter how I treat others or how I live, as long as I have what I want.
Karl Marx would be proud...
I think you might benefit from sitting more. Your thinking is completely undisciplined here.
What you say is off topic, fully unrelated to the research in question. Kahneman and Deaton did not ever suggest "material success and progress are the highest values in life", and in fact, Irene's reference to Maslow makes clear that material stuff is rather lowest in life, if that escaped you. Nor did Kahneman and Deaton say it doesn't matter how you treat others, and so on.
All these additions are your very own free associations, following only your own private logic.
“The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity” - Abraham Lincoln.
Char has a point. The poor have a higher level of angst not because their material needs aren't satisfied, but because their basic needs aren't satisfied. There is something to money bringing less stress (and therefore more happiness).
I don't think you could find a better example of materialism, a doctrine that material success and progress are the highest values in life.
It doesn't matter how I treat others or how I live, as long as I have what I want.
Karl Marx would be proud: "... the satisfaction of everyday economic needs is the primary reality in every epoch of history." That may be so in the most superficial level of human experience. But, of course, that is the level in which most people live, so it is understandable.
Of course we have to have our physical needs satisfied. But psychological needs are the needs of ego and those are not permanently satisfied by anything.
Money can buy satisfaction, pleasure, entertainment. That is not happiness.
The question is not what money can buy, but what lack of money can destroy. Anyone living in a welfare state knows that the mind is only then angst-free when primal subsistence fears are alleviated. Of course, there is the incidental homeless bum who's happy - but that's an argument only for the statistically challenged.
So, you are insisting that happiness is to have stuff to satisfy your material needs.
Of course the question is what money can buy. $75,000 is the treshold to make you happy. That was the jest of the original point.
As far as I am concerned, we are mixing apples and oranges. Maybe we should live out "happiness" altogether from this discussion..
Char has a point. The poor have a higher level of angst not because their material needs aren't satisfied, but because their basic needs aren't satisfied. There is something to money bringing less stress (and therefore more happiness).
Money can buy satisfaction, pleasure, entertainment. That is not happiness.
The question is not what money can buy, but what lack of money can destroy. Anyone living in a welfare state knows that the mind is only then angst-free when primal subsistence fears are alleviated. Of course, there is the incidental homeless bum who's happy - but that's an argument only for the statistically challenged.
So, you are insisting that happiness is to have stuff to satisfy your material needs.
Of course the question is what money can buy. $75,000 is the treshold to make you happy. That was the jest of the original point.
As far as I am concerned, we are mixing apples and oranges. Maybe we should live out "happiness" altogether from this discussion..
Char has a point. The poor have a higher level of angst not because their material needs aren't satisfied, but because their basic needs aren't satisfied. There is something to money bringing less stress (and therefore more happiness).
"No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible." George Chakiris
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase
Money can buy satisfaction, pleasure, entertainment. That is not happiness.
The question is not what money can buy, but what lack of money can destroy. Anyone living in a welfare state knows that the mind is only then angst-free when primal subsistence fears are alleviated. Of course, there is the incidental homeless bum who's happy - but that's an argument only for the statistically challenged.
So, you are insisting that happiness is to have stuff to satisfy your material needs.
Of course the question is what money can buy. $75,000 is the treshold to make you happy. That was the jest of the original point.
As far as I am concerned, we are mixing apples and oranges. Maybe we should live out "happiness" altogether from this discussion..
Money can buy satisfaction, pleasure, entertainment. That is not happiness.
The question is not what money can buy, but what lack of money can destroy. Anyone living in a welfare state knows that the mind is only then angst-free when primal subsistence fears are alleviated. Of course, there is the incidental homeless bum who's happy - but that's an argument only for the statistically challenged.
“The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity” - Abraham Lincoln.
Whatever I post anywhere on Beliefnet brings people happiness more than money does! There are some who hold out for money.
Yeah, right.
Infinite Blessings Mike/NAFOD "Lord, please, protect me from Your followers!" "WWBD? Buddha- Does it matter? If you are enlightened it does not. If you are not enlightened it still doesn't matter." "If you go looking to place blame, eventually you'll wind up blaming the Gods"
