Do a back-of-the-envelope calculation for how much it would cost to do something to an extreme:
- constant tour of the world
- ultimate gaming setup
- beach bum in the tropics.
Then figure out how much you'd have to work to achieve it. In most cases, it takes less than a full-time median wage 52 . 40 . 16, meaning I could do them working far less than full-time.
"making it" is a state of mind. As is striving to reach an amorphous goal. Happiness research is perhaps some of the most useless work in economics because self reporting is so iffy.
If people don't feel rich, it has nothing to do with their absolute level of material comfort. Almost everyone alive today is far more rich than all other humans that have ever lived.
Most of us probably have those moments where we think of how great it would be to live one of your 'extreme' examples, but we wouldn't really want to live like that. Who wants to spend their lives just sitting around? In fact, most people I know spend their free time creating things in one form or another, and would do it 24/7 if given the opportunity.
Happiness is creating new things, and to the extent that money enables this, it makes us happy.
Then figure out how much you'd have to work to achieve it. In most cases, it takes less than a full-time median wage 52 . 40 . 16, meaning I could do them working far less than full-time.
"making it" is a state of mind. As is striving to reach an amorphous goal. Happiness research is perhaps some of the most useless work in economics because self reporting is so iffy.
If people don't feel rich, it has nothing to do with their absolute level of material comfort. Almost everyone alive today is far more rich than all other humans that have ever lived.