I Think I Like This Book
I’ve only just begun, but I think I’m ready to recommend The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think Is Right Is Wrong by Jennifer Michael Hecht.
Hecht has a fine pluralistic sensibility and a knack for getting distance from otherwise invisible cultural assumptions by relating them to historical precedent. She’s already convinced me that contemporary body obsessions aren’t superior to corseting. Of course, I liked this bit:
It is a modern myth that money cannot make you happy. We all say that it can’t, but, given one wish, a lot of us would go for cash. We certainly opt for money over many other pleasures in structuring our real lives. Part of the reason is that what you can buy with money today you used to be able to get for free—social contact and play that can fit neatly into your life. Shopping, television, shows, and sports are not deep, but neither were the common social contact and play that kept people happy in the past.
Good stuff.
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I have to disagree with this one. Lots of people spend a lot of time chasing money because they feel caught on a treadmill, not because the money actually makes them happy.
When I left a high-profile job (good money, great for the ego, hob-knobbing with the upper crust) in the heart of Toronto to pursue a career of self-employment and most likely destitution in the obscurity of the countryside, in order to be able to work from home while my daughter was growing up, so many people told me how they wished they could do the same. But they were afraid. The money was not bringing them a particulkarly high level of happiness, and the chase they wer engaged in was actually reducing their happiness.
It is important to note the difference between money, which I think we all agree is very useful for the things it can buy and therefore brings at least some happiness, and what we have to do to get the money (what we have to give up). A further distinction must be made between what we do to earn enough money for our basic needs and at various increments later.
I would wager that working an honest 8 hours a day to earn what we need and some of the many luxuries that we often take for granted brings a certain level of happiness.
But as we increase our work hours and earn money for more and more things that we might not otherwise have aspired to, the what-we-give-up line crosses over the what-we-earn line and the chase for more money reduces our happiness. That tipping point would be different for each one of us, but it might not always be easy to recognize.
In summary, this is a fairly complex topic, but for most people who might buy this book, money (additional money) will not buy them happiness.