This is a guest post from Dr. Keith Starcher, a long-time college professor and business consultant. Most importantly, he is the father of my wife, which makes him a big-deal.
Social research might prove what we’ve known all along.
Money can’t buy happiness.
Nor, it turns out, can good looks or social status.
What can make a difference, though, is a sense of being “called” to your work, no matter how lowly that work may seem.
The book, Authentic Happiness (Free Press, 2002) by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman, examines what people mean by “happiness” and “fulfillment” and how these states of being can be attained.
Feelings of well-being have very little to do with wealth, beauty, status, even health, according to Seligman. Being good-looking, for instance, “does not have much effect at all on happiness.” Even physical health is “barely connected with happiness.” Amid larger themes of love, family, and positive emotion, he devotes part of his research to practical issues of work and wealth.
People who value money more than other goals are less satisfied with their income and with their lives as a whole. When it comes to work, Seligman claims happier people are more productive. A strong predictor of happiness is a sense of “calling.” What’s a calling? An executive or a physician who cares only for the money has a job, not a calling. Conversely, a garbage collector who sees the job as making the world a cleaner and healthier place to live has a calling.
Seligman says our economy is swiftly shifting from a money economy to one where satisfaction reigns. “The newly minted coin of this realm is life satisfaction.” People are asking themselves, “Does my work have to be unsatisfying”? His answer: “Recrafting your job to deploy your strengths and virtues every day not only makes work more enjoyable but transforms a routine job or a stalled career into a calling.” Companies wanting to keep pace, he says, need to mesh employee strengths with their work, and make room for them to recraft their work within the bounds of corporate goals.
In addition, research has shown that working just to buy more stuff leads to life dissatisfaction. That is, materialism is not the key to happiness. Materialistic people believe that the continued acquisition of possessions will lead to greater happiness and satisfaction in life and that lack of possessions will lead to dissatisfaction in life. Materialistic people also have inflated expectations of their standard of living whereas non materialistic people have realistic expectations.
The above discussion on materialism reminds me of long-ago conversations I had with my two daughters each time they returned from a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
“Dad,” each would say, “how can these people who have nothing appear to be happier than us when we have so much?”
That’s a great question.
Allow me to close with these quotes. The first one is from an unknown source …
You cry over spilled champagne! Your complaints are not over the lack of necessities, but the abundance of benefits. You bellyache over the frills, not the basics; over benefits not essentials. The source of your problem is your blessing.
And this one by Morrie Schwartz …
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.