Cashing In on Happiness

"Money can't buy happiness...or love." these oft-quoted phrases (or clauses, actually) are supposed proof that having or not having money has no effect on one's life. People who say, "Money isn't everything" are people with money who are convinced that Reaganomics is the path to true happiness, and it is...for them. for the rest of us? Maybe not so much since so very little seems to actually trickle down. Anyway, until now, nobody has been able to put a price on happiness as it equates to money. Leave it up to researchers at Stanford to put the two together and come up with the ultimate answer: $75,000.
That's what these folks have decided and shared with us in their report to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that was released recently.
The researchers studied two factors: 1.how people think about the life they're living, and 2.the feelings people have as they experience life itself. In a nutshell, here is what they discovered:
1. Having a yearly income of $75,000.00 allows people to feel happy and satisfied; however,
2. People are NO HAPPIER if they have more money! It seems that $75k is both the alpha and the omega here.
3. People's evaluation of their lives rises as their incomes rise, but the quality of experiences DID NOT increase with more money. This seems to be because above a certain level, the individuals' well-being is determined by factors other than money.
4. However, being sick or divorced or facing other tragedies is harder for poor people than it is for those who have money. (ya think?)
All in all, the one question that remains unanswered by this study is this: is it more important to feel good or to feel that one's life is going well?
Researchers did not address this issue.
I don't feel especially good about THAT!