does money buy happiness

"Does money buy happiness?" 

I was asked this question in May of 2021. This was my answer:

In general, every day I have slightly more money than I did the day before. There may be some days I'm down, but the average trend line is moving up and to the right.

And just so we're clear on definitions here, when I say "money" I'm not talking about earned income. I'm talking about assets, about savings, about real wealth.

Am I happier in general than I was when I was in debt? 

No. 

It's a wash. My baseline hasn't budged. An average day today is hardly any different than an average day when I was struggling.

What about the good days? When things are going great, when the entire world seems to be holding the door for me, the days when I open my fast food bag to find the fries are fresh AND there's a bunch of free ones at the bottom for me... Am I happier then? 

Nope. Not really.

But on those bad days... Those dark days... When the chains of depression clamp down around my neck and demand I deliver a three hundred pound key down an eternal staircase to a forbidden sea of self destruction sealed behind a solid door that begs to be unlocked... Does money make me happy then? 

No. 

But before, on those terrible days, I would have to get out of bed anyway. I would have to leave my house, to go to work, to continue on like nothing was wrong. I couldn't afford not to. 

But now when I'm in that place, I can comfortably stay home. I can turn off my phone. I can do exactly what I want to do on those days without fear. And if anybody asks me why, I can answer honestly and say "I didn't feel like it."

Money hasn't bought me happiness, but it does afford me options. And the option to say "no" when I want to has improved my quality of life far beyond anything I could have ever imagined two letters could. 

That is the most valuable thing money can buy.

Not happiness, but freedom to make your own choices.

pyramids

A reply to someone who asked why they have never been promoted at work. 

As someone in the upper end of the pyramid, it's not that they don't want to bring someone "up from the bottom," it's that you can't have stability at the top if you weaken the base.

Something my grandfather told me when I was 6 years old stuck with me, he said "don't be good at something you don't want to do."

If a "bottom" worker excels at their job, you can't just promote them. There are certain people at every job that do their assigned role so well that to remove them would require two people to replace them. Also, just because someone excels at one set of tasks doesn't mean they have the attitude or outlook to be an effective manager. Often times, people who make shitty "workers" are the ones who perform well as managers.

But without those high performing workers, the ones you can depend on to execute the day-to-day tasks with minimal direction and without constant follow up, the manager would quickly begin to fall behind in their tasks as they would become just another worker.

It's possible to be so good at what you do that you make it difficult to promote you

feeling that life is underwhelming

Our entire galaxy is small compared to the vastness of the universe.

Our solar system is small compared to the size of the galaxy we're in. 

Our planet is nothing compared to the size of the solar system it's part of. 

You and me are just tiny specks compared to the planet we live on. 

And our brains we need to understand it all are even smaller than that. 

And yet this tiny planet will give you everything you need to survive. 

It might feel like a long time, or it might feel like no time at all, depending on the mood you're in when you think about it. But in absolute terms - all life is short. A millionth of a second on the cosmic clock. 

And every life after yours is shorter and shorter in relation to everything that came before it. 

It doesn't matter what you do, where you go, what you see, who you meet, how many children you have, or if you fall in love. 

You will die. 

We all will. 

And it doesn't matter what we did, where we went, what we saw, who we met, how many children we had, or if we fell in love. 

It will all be forgotten. 

Some people may feel sad when you die, but only for a moment. 

They will do everything they can to forget about you and move on, because nobody wants to sit around being sad all the time. 

If you do something great that helps a lot of people, then maybe more people will be sad about you for a little while longer. But 99% of them will be people you never met. And they too, will forget.

We are all just invisible dots in time surrounded by an infinite black expanse that is simultaneously everything and nothing at all. 

Life really is underwhelming if you take it for what it truly is. 

But there's a quote I heard about fourteen years ago that I recall from time to time. 

"We are born alone, we live alone, we die alone. It is only through our love and friendships that we create the illusion, at least for the moment, that we are not alone." 

Something like that. 

It's the things we fill our time with that distract us from the knowledge that our lives really are insignificant. It's all a game. We know how it ends, but if that's all we focus on then it's hard to think of anything else.

So we go to work, we start families, we dream, we invent, we travel, we do all these things not because they're necessary for survival, but because they're distracting.

It's all part of the illusion.

Story: The Taco Lady

About two years ago I managed a gas station with a taco restaurant. Both were privately owned by the same person, my boss. They were located in a small town with other, cheaper, gas stations - so to guarantee business for ourselves - we gave discounts to the larger companies in town. They would buy gas from us, we offered a slight discount in exchange, and that's how we set ourselves apart.

The employees from the other companies would come in and buy food from the taco place and merchandise from the store when they bought gas. Typically for breakfast and lunch. It was a double win for us.

But suddenly, we noticed a drop in lunch time sales. It was a small town, so by asking around I found out the cause. Someone was selling lunch plates directly in the parking lot of one of our biggest fuel accounts, and they were doing it for less. They were selling the food right out of the back of their car. No license, no permits, no temperature control. People were going to her instead of us.

So, my boss told me I had to call the city and report them for operating without a permit. He gave me a long lecture about how it was for the safety of the community, and how it was "unfair" that they could operate at lower costs than us because they were avoiding the requirements of having bathrooms, hand washing stations, permits, rent and licensing.

I was told to report them, so that's what I did. And by the end of the week, they were issued a citation (no fine), and the company parking lot they were selling food in banned their employees from bringing outside food inside the building after they clocked in.

Sales returned to normal.

But about 3 months later, our sales dipped again around lunch time.

I found out that the lady who was selling the food from her car before had now purchased a food trailer, fully licensed and permitted, and began selling the same meals as before. She was selling her lunch items in the parking lots of other businesses who agreed to host her, giving her customers access to their bathrooms.

It started with just lunch.

Then she started selling breakfast.

Then she extended her hours into the evening, cutting into dinner.

Her food quickly became a local favorite. And finding her almost became a game on social media, because she was always in a different spot for breakfast lunch and dinner. Locals would post photos and share her location every day so other people could find her.

Initially, we lost about 5% in sales when she was selling from her trunk. Once she had the food trailer, we were down 12% for the day. To combat that, we had to advertise aggressively to attract new customers to replace the ones we lost.

I left the company shortly after that, but I do know that the sales picked back up.

Like I said, that was two years ago. I drove through that town again recently, and I saw her taco truck. She has a permanent location now, and a packed parking lot.

As for the place I worked for, well, let's just say it's not exactly the symbol of prosperity it once was.