I really like this response, it gives tremendous insights into the person. I'd like to unpack it a bit though and perhaps provide some food for thought.
Starting in the middle:
> I think it's not productive to pretend like
> money doesn't equate to happiness.
That quote and this one:
> Yet the vast majority of the time, this sentiment
> comes from people who are well-off
Ties the notion of money to happiness.
It would be great if it were that simple, but it isn't. All of the studies show that once your basic needs are met The correlation between money and happiness essentially goes away. And part of the problem is being imprecise in our language, because their is 'money' which is to say "gee you're pulling in $10,000 a month!" and there is 'wealth' "gee it only takes 10% of your take home pay to cover your rent!"
Many people who work in the STEM sector of the market, will have their basic needs met. They will all have individually varying levels of happiness that are not well correlated with their individually varying levels of wealth. You'll meet them, people who are "rich" and miserable, people who consider themselves "middle class" and are totally happy.
And I assert there is a key to happiness in this uncorrelated range of wealth.[1] That key is to define your happiness in something you have complete control over, rather than something that is externally influenced. Everyone I've ever met who does that is happier, more consistently, than people who don't do that. It doesn't have to be learning like it is for me, I know people who are very happy and measure their days by how many people they have helped.
It is my thesis that everyone has some internal notion of their "score" in life, and once their survival needs are well met (food & shelter) their happiness is entirely a function of how much they are 'scoring' versus an arbitrary benchmark of what a good 'score' should be.
[1] For the literally minded we'll define this uncorrelated region as that level of wealth that starts just above 'I have enough incoming capital to keep from struggling to meet financial obligations' and below 'I have so much capital I don't have to work to meet my financial obligations.'
Starting in the middle:
That quote and this one: Ties the notion of money to happiness.It would be great if it were that simple, but it isn't. All of the studies show that once your basic needs are met The correlation between money and happiness essentially goes away. And part of the problem is being imprecise in our language, because their is 'money' which is to say "gee you're pulling in $10,000 a month!" and there is 'wealth' "gee it only takes 10% of your take home pay to cover your rent!"
Many people who work in the STEM sector of the market, will have their basic needs met. They will all have individually varying levels of happiness that are not well correlated with their individually varying levels of wealth. You'll meet them, people who are "rich" and miserable, people who consider themselves "middle class" and are totally happy.
And I assert there is a key to happiness in this uncorrelated range of wealth.[1] That key is to define your happiness in something you have complete control over, rather than something that is externally influenced. Everyone I've ever met who does that is happier, more consistently, than people who don't do that. It doesn't have to be learning like it is for me, I know people who are very happy and measure their days by how many people they have helped.
It is my thesis that everyone has some internal notion of their "score" in life, and once their survival needs are well met (food & shelter) their happiness is entirely a function of how much they are 'scoring' versus an arbitrary benchmark of what a good 'score' should be.
[1] For the literally minded we'll define this uncorrelated region as that level of wealth that starts just above 'I have enough incoming capital to keep from struggling to meet financial obligations' and below 'I have so much capital I don't have to work to meet my financial obligations.'