Simplify Your Life to Find Greater Happiness Cont.

Simplify Your Life to Find Greater Happiness

Income, our perceptions, and happiness

Studies show that once we have sufficient for our needs, happiness and income are not related (see https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S15/15/09S18/index.xml?section=topstories).   Yes, money can buy a level of comfort and we need money for the necessities of life, but once we have our basic needs met, more money usually just means more problems rather than a happier life. Other studies explain that it is not how much we actually earn but our perception of how much we have and earn that really matters.  For example, take two families who live in the same neighborhood, have the same number of children, and earn the same income.  One family could be grateful for what they have and feel blessed with their household income while the other family could feel poor and consistently want new stuff. Rather than income, the family’s perception would make their financial reality.  What are your perceptions making a reality?  Are you full of gratitude or desire for more stuff?

Oh Joy! Photo

How this applies to you…

Be like a minimalist or freegan and instead of wanting the next new thing, look at what you have and fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Take the 33 for 3 challenge.  Choose 33 items from your clothing (not including socks or underwear but does include shoes) and only wear (by mixing and matching) these 33 items of clothing for 3 months.  Or, if you prefer, box everything up and only take something out when you use it.  After a few months (or each season), look at what you never use and give serious thought to giving it to a second-hand store.  According to minimalists, using only what we need, giving our excess, and decluttering our homes and our lives is liberating.  Being free from out “stuff” allows us more time, room, and energy to focus on what really matters.  It frees us from worry, from guilt, from consumerism. 

Each year I take a group of students and professionals on a study abroad experience.  In 2014 we went to Costa Rica where the focus was on consumerism and happiness.  Students were asked to reflect on their lives and what truly mattered to them, what brought them happiness in life.  They reflected on what their time was spent on and if it was spent on things that mattered most to them.  They then were asked to reflect on the state of happiness of those they observed living in Costa Rica and where their happiness came from.  Students overwhelmingly came to the realization that the people they observed in Costa Rica were happier than they were, even though they were the ones with the new phones, new cars, nicer clothes and homes, and more money.  Most students were humbled and even felt ashamed at their selfishness and ungrateful attitude.  The students desired to live more simple lives, lives like those they met in Costa Rica where they lived the “pura vida” or the good life. 

While each of us can’t travel to Costa Rica to have a life epiphany, each one of us can reflect on our lives and what brings happiness.  If happiness truly comes from relationships, family, service, and experiences, are we spending the necessary time in these areas?  Or, is most of our time, energy, and focus spent on acquiring more stuff?  

Don’t we owe it to ourselves to simplify our lives, to let go of the less important for the things that truly matter?  We shouldn’t let our lives get so filled with good things that we don’t have time for the essential things.  Perhaps we should be like the Yale graduate, New York City journalist who quite her $95,000 job to move to an island in the Caribbean to sell ice cream (see http://www.today.com/news/woman-gives-95-000-job-new-york-city-move-island-t18536). The prior journalist observed “that for most of the 20th century, a large part of the American Dream had to do with the accumulation of wealth and material things — but that's changed. ‘I think that in the last decade or two, people started realizing that 'things' weren't making them happy. Experiences make people happy,’ she said.

The bottom line – simplify your life to find greater happiness.  Whether you declutter your home of stuff or your life of pursuits that don’t really matter, freeing up space and time lightens your load and brings a smile to your face.  Make a goal to simplify your life in at least one way and to spend more time and energy on things that truly matter, things that will bring you increased happiness.

Written By: Bryce Jorgensen, PhD

Family Resource Management Specialist