Being Happier

Buying things won’t make you happier. But research shows that buying time can, as long as you do it the right way.

In 1930, the influential economist John Maynard Keynes assessed how technological and economic advances had reduced the number of hours the average person worked. He predicted that within two generations, most people would work only three hours a day.

Working hard wouldn’t be a problem. Filling all that free time would, for most people, be the problem.

While Keynes got a lot of things right, he swung and missed on that one. Technological advances have not freed up the average person’s time. Neither have broader economic advances.

Nor has increased wealth. In fact, some studies show that the more money people make, the less time they think they have.Add it all up, and money can’t buy you happiness.Unless, purposefully and consciously, you use a little money to buy a little time.

In a 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers surveyed thousands of people who sometimes paid other people to perform tasks they didn’t enjoy or didn’t want to do. Like mowing the lawn. Or cleaning the house. Or running errands. Stuff they needed to do, but didn’t particularly want to do.

Unsurprisingly, people who were willing to spend a little money to buy a little time were happier and felt greater overall life satisfaction than those who did not.

Correlation isn’t always causation, though. Maybe the people who spend money to buy time are happier simply because they have the money to buy time?

Nope. While relatively wealthy people who spent money to buy a little time were happier than relatively wealthy people who did not, people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who spent money to buy a little time were happier than those at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who did not.  READ MORE...