Can Money Buy Happiness?

Money can help you find more happiness, so long as you know just what you can and can't expect from it.

 Money Misery The new science of happiness starts with a simple insight: We're never satisfied. "We always think if we just had a little bit more money, we'd be happier," says Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College, "but when we get there, we're not." Indeed, the more you make, the more you want. The more you have, the less effective it is at bringing you joy, and that seeming paradox has long bedeviled economists. "Once you get basic human needs met, a lot more money doesn't make a lot more happiness," notes Dan Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard University and the author of the new book stumbling on Happiness. And while the rich are happier than the poor, the enormous rise in living standards over the past 50 years hasn't made Americans happier. Why? Three reasons:

You overestimate how much pleasure you'll get from having more. Humans are adaptable creatures, which has been a plus during assorted ice ages, plagues and wars. But that's also why you're never all that satisfied for long when good fortune comes your way. While earning more makes you happy in the short term, you quickly adjust to your new wealth--and everything it buys you.

Even though stuff seldom brings you the satisfaction you expect, you keep returning to the mall and the car dealership in search of more. "When you imagine how much you're going to enjoy a Porsche, what you're imagining is the day you get it," says Gilbert. When your new car loses its ability to make your heart go pitter-patter, he says, you tend to draw the wrong conclusions. Instead of questioning the notion that you can buy happiness on the car lot, you begin to question your choice of car. So you pin your hopes on a new BMW, only to be disappointed again.

More money can lead to more stress. The big salary you pull in from your high-paying job may not buy you much in the way of happiness. But it can buy you a spacious house in the suburbs. Trouble is, that also means a long trip to and from work, and study after study confirms what you sense daily: Even if you love your job, the little slice of everyday hell you call the commute can wear you down. You can adjust to most anything, but a stop-and-go drive or an overstuffed bus will make you unhappy whether it's your first day on the job or your last.

You endlessly compare yourself with the family next door. H.L. Mencken once quipped that the happy man was one who earned $100 more than his wife's sister's husband. He was right. Happiness scholars have found that how you stand relative to others makes a much bigger difference to your sense of well-being than how much you make in an absolute sense.

You may feel a touch of envy when you read about the glamorous lives of the absurdly wealthy, old friends and old classmates.

"You have to think, 'I could have been that person,' " Luttmer says.

 

 

عمل الطالبات من الصف الحادي عشر : ألاء قصاب [email protected]  (جمع معلومات)

هدى قشقش [email protected]  ( كاتب)

عبير جركس [email protected] (تنسيق )

بإشراف المدرسة : إنعام مرتيني [email protected]

 

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2006/08/01/8382225/index.htm