Time Or Money? Happy People Reply
If we were asked to choose between a raise in pay or a reduction in our working hours, what would we choose? Our state of happiness depends in part on our response. A study published by the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science reveals that happy people tend to opt for time over money.
According to a study conducted by Princeton University, using your money well and earning up to $58,000 per year can influence our level of subjective happiness. However, beyond that, can we be happy by accumulating more and more money, or will it be necessary to achieve happiness to have time in order to be able to benefit from our loved ones, but also of ourselves? Read the rest of this article, where we attempt to answer this question.
Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and Nobel laureate in economics in 2002 and Angus Deaton, Nobel laureate in economics in 2015, analyzed more than 450,000 responses and came to the conclusion that the more money we earn, the more we value life.
However, opinion on the quality of daily emotional experiences stabilizes after a certain level of income. This means that there is a moment when even if we earn more, we will not be happier; that is, the money / happiness relationship stagnates from around $75,000 annually (approximately € 58,000 per year).
With these results, it can be said that money can buy happiness, but that is not possible in all circumstances because there is a limit and when it is exceeded, levels of satisfaction do not increase. , and could even decrease.
Various studies suggest that money does not buy happiness, but gives rise to surges of euphoria that do not last long. From the point of view of psychology, this is explained by the concept of habit and addiction; if at the beginning we like to earn a lot of money, in the long run, this feeling disappears because we are used to it and we therefore lower the levels of happiness that we had at the beginning.
As we see, overall happiness does not depend only on what we do, but also on how we interpret it and ultimately, our particular conception of this concept.
On the other hand, success is associated with having more of everything: more things, more recognition, more money… And that makes sense: we’ve already thought about how money well spent can help us to be happy, but what about the weather? The stereotype of the successful person is usually accompanied by that of the busy worker who barely has time to enjoy their actions, friends, and family.
What good is it to have success, money or recognition if you can’t take advantage of it? If the goal of this life is to be happy people, why don’t we spend more time on what really makes us alive? The answer may be linked to the fact that we do not know, or we have never even asked ourselves the question …
In a recent study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, almost 4,500 people were asked whether they place more importance on money or time to achieve happiness. 64% said they preferred money. However, the study also showed that those who place more importance on having time are happier. 25% of participants who chose money when asked the question changed their mind a year later and opted for time.
The results of this study have shown that if two people find themselves in the same circumstances, the one for whom time is more important than money will be happier than the one who will choose money. But this is not the only study that has been conducted on this subject.
A study conducted at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada) found that valuing time over money is associated with greater levels of happiness, especially when earning that money requires working long days.
As we get older, we put more emphasis on time on the priority scale. This has its logic, since every second that passes becomes one more good.
Today, the youngest, namely Generation Y, seem to have learned from previous generations; According to a 2013 study by consultant Price Waterhouse Coopers, young people would rather have more free time and be able to focus on their personal lives rather than trying to earn a big salary.
As we can see, therefore, if we trust the results of these studies, money helps us to be happy people up to a point, that is, it has its limits. However, knowing how to take advantage of the time we have is always important, especially for our well-being. Because beyond money, we should never forget to take advantage of our time.
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