Okay, okay…I know what you are thinking. Another does money buy happiness post, ugh!!! And I see your point. This question has been hashed out by many “experts” before me. By now, most of us are familiar with the relevant studies. First Kahneman and Deaton in 2010. Then Killingsworth in in 2012. Then Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers in 2023.
To summarize from the 2023 collaboration:
“Happiness increases steadily with log(income) among happier people, and even accelerates in the happiest group. Complementary nonlinearities contribute to the overall linear-log relationship. We then explain why Kahneman and Deaton overstated the flattening pattern and why Killingsworth failed to find it. We suggest that Kahneman and Deaton might have reached the correct conclusion if they had described their results in terms of unhappiness rather than happiness; their measures could not discriminate among degrees of happiness because of a ceiling effect.”
I don’t know about you, but I have almost no idea what all that means. Part of the problem is that the original 2010 Kahneman paper “reported data from “more than 450,000 responses to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a daily survey of 1,000 US residents conducted by the Gallup Organization in 2008 to 9”. The 2021 Killingsworth paper “recruited a large number of participants for a study in which he obtained 1,725,994 experience-sampling reports from 33,391 employed US adults. The participants were prompted on their smartphones to report their current happiness, typically three times per day for several weeks.”
Now I might be crazy, but I want to look at data that covers far more than just 1-2 years or several weeks. To really understand if money is associated with happiness, I would ideally like to study such things for many years. Luckily, there is a study that did just that.
The Harvard study of adult development has followed 724 men since 1938. The group consists of men from various economic and social backgrounds. Over the years, the researchers have collected all kinds of health information, and every two years they ask members questions about their lives and their mental and emotional wellness. They even interview family members.
And what did the Harvard study show? Not money, career development, exercise, or a healthy diet, but rather personal relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer. It’s the people. Period. Or what I like to call connections.
Those of you who have been reading this substack regularly will probably all be asking the same question:
Wait…isn’t it purpose that is associated with happiness, health, and longevity? How could it be both?
My answer is simple. Purpose is not the key to happiness. But, little p purpose is the key to forming lasting and enduring connections through generational growth and community building. And connections, vis a vis the Harvard study, cause happiness.
Next week we will tackle why purpose leads to community and connections.
Did you catch this week’s episode of Earn & Invest (Click to listen)
Path to Purpose Coaching
Over the last year, writing my new book The Purpose Code, I have spent a huge amount of time thinking about, writing about, and discussing purpose. I have offered one-on-one and group coaching to my mastermind group, Wealth With Purpose. These discussions stem from my real life encounters with dying hospice patients as well as the numerous interactions I have had with people after reading Taking Stock.
What I've found is that most of us who listen to the Earn & Invest Podcast struggle with three basic issues:
How do I define purpose in my life?
How do I transition to a more fulfilling career?
What is enough money look like? Enough life?
To help navigate these waters, I have decided to offer the Path to Purpose coaching program. This is one-on-one coaching with me to help you further define purpose, direction, and career. Sessions will be spread over five weeks with a goal to provide a more concrete and enjoyable path to crack the purpose code and start living your life now whether you are broke, pre financial independence, financially independent, or beyond.
https://www.earnandinvest.com/coaching