Experiences Buy more Happiness than Things
There is no doubt that money impacts short-term happiness in that we have control over how we spend our time. If you have enough money to quit work while kids are young that might impact your happiness for the time being. If you have enough money to change careers and do what you love, that can impact money. And yet, there are a number of interesting studies that show how and what we spend our money on directly makes us happy.
A team of Harvard researches surveyed people on their spending habits and found that spending money on others does boost happiness whereas spending money on oneself does not affect level of happiness.
Then the old Retail Therapy, when you are down – go shopping. Bad moods make more bad decisions and we spend the most when we feel unhappy. No surprise. Let’s take that further, if we want to keep our financial stress low we need to manage our money well. If we are happy, healthy, and joyful we tend to spend less and therefore have more money.
Then there is the choice between the new dress, table or TV and spending on a great vacation – an adventure – a memory that can never be taken away. Our experiences last while our purchases fade away. We relive these memories through stories, writings, photos, books, websites, blogs, and sharing years later about your adventure rafting down the Grand Canyon years later. Carter and Gilovich in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology report that as our income increases (for those with expendable income), buying an experience (i.e. a vacation, a learning event, a play, movie, dining out) provide us with two to three times the level of wellbeing that a material purchase provides.
Rule of thumb, we are less likely to regret buying an experience than a thing. This in turn makes us feel good and not feel regretful, remorseful, or mad at ourselves.
Combining our need for social interaction with our need for social well-being is a great step in increasing your joy in life. Rath and Harter, in their book Well Being, talk further about the risk of dying from heart disease or getting sick is twice as likely for people who have few close relationships. Close relationships affect our health and well-being and even more so if they are in close proximity.
Studies show that people who have a best friend at work are happier. Since you are around people at work – a lot of the time – make an effort to develop good, fun relationships in which you share, support each other, and laugh together.
If you work alone, reach out, get out, network, and engage socially with friends and family during your waking hours. This can include electronic forms of communicating with others through emails, facebook, twitter, and on the phone.
The past few months this need for pure social interaction has become even more evident to me as I work alone much of the time. To counteract this, I have reached out to some woman I like and connect with who are also working alone. Monthly we call each other to just talk, chat, catch up and share. No agenda, no goal, no purpose other than to enjoy each other and share. Albeit this isn’t daily and is virtually, it is something I look forward to and makes me feel good long after our conversation.
In fact, Harter and Arora at Gallup have collected data from over 140,000 Americans and asked people to tell them if they had a great day or a worry/stressful day. They correlated this with the number of hours spent with friends and family including on the phone, emails, and social networking. They discovered that to have a good day, the daily recommended dose of social time is 6 hours per day. The implications are fascinating for increasing your joy in life and decreasing stress. Remember this includes work and home time, in person, electronic, and telephonic interactions
Excerpt from upcoming book, Courage and Croissants, Inspiring Joyful Living
As our book is coming into the final finishes I am happy to share with you the section on Life Guidebook Tips.
The following tip is one of my favorites as it says you don't have to have it all figured out, you just have to have a feeling, a dream, a hope, a sense and as you lean into it, let the breeze take you towards something wonderful.
Enjoy and let us know what you are dreaming of and willing to lean into as well.
Guidebook Tip #15: Lean into creating the life you want to live
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Take the first step in faith.
You don’t have to see the whole staircase.
Just take the first step.
Martin Luther King Jr., Legendary Civil Rights Leader (1929-1968)
Having a clear vision is one of the best motivators for creating the life you want to live. However, sometimes we just aren’t that clear. We have a fuzzy idea, a sense of what we want, and a hope that clarity comes to us sooner than later. Similar to painting a fantastic landscape we don’t know exactly where it is going to take us, but we are willing to continue to put layer after layer of paint on the canvas.
Even without a vivid vision, you can start to live the life you want by going with the idea. Just start and let the momentum take you with it. Experiment, let it guide you, learn along the way, and use the feedback to clearer on the direction you want to go.
A few tips for leaning into the life you want to create:
Create Momentum
- Be willing to start without seeing what the end result might look like
Simply start doing what makes sense and let the next logical action present itself to you.
If you have always wanted to run a marathon. Start by walking, run a few steps, and before you know it you might be running a mile, joining a running club or training with a group. A variety of options will present itself to you if you just start.- A fuzzy idea or dream is a great place to start.
Springtime is my favorite time of year when the sun shines, the days get longer, the flowers bloom and it’s my birthday. Springtime is a time to clean out, clean up, and declutter our selves spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically. It is the time of rebirth and putting a bit of spring into our step. 
As Oprah wrote about in her latest issue of Oprah Magazine, “it is time to declutter.”
A terrific way to start March. Following are a couple of suggestions on bringing more health, joy, and good feeling into your life both in business and at home.
Clean out closets, file cabinets, boxes, junk drawers, and email inboxes.
Clothes: Make a pile to give away, sell to consignment or repair/tailor
- Get rid of anything that you haven’t worn in a year
- Get rid of anything you don’t like, doesn’t make you feel good, or doesn’t look good on you—Be brutal!
- Organize your clothes by color and toss half the black sweaters that don’t fit right.
Drawers:
- · Throw away the old files that aren’t critical (ie. Financial and tax documents). If you haven’t used it in 2 years clean it out and only keep the most important
- · Work files are often useless after 1 year. If you can get it on the computer, internet or web get rid of it. It only holds you down
- · Pretend you just lost everything in an earthquake or flood, what do you really wish you still had?
Next weekend cancel everything. Make no plans. Be spontaneous. Do what comes naturally. Go with the weather. If it is sunny go to the beach. If it is rainy turn on the fireplace and drink hot chocolate.
This past weekend was one of the most relaxing and also somewhat productive weekends my family has had in along time. The secret, we planned nothing.
We woke up on Saturday, lazed around, read, had coffee, did a bit of gardening, a bit on the computer and had a nice leisurely lunch outside in the sunshine. By 2 pm, my daughter asked if we could go to the Halloween store to buy her a costume. She no longer wanted to be a princess but now that she was 10, she wanted to be a vampirette. Casually we drove on over and found the perfect costume for a decent price. Next door was Borders and all being lovers of books and bookstores, we all agreed "let's go.: Wandering the aisles and settling down to read a magazine or a book, we had some ice tea and just let the time slide by-- one hour-- two hours-- we had no where to go and no one waiting for us. By 6:30 we decided to head home and make dinner and slide again into a DVD, all cuddled up in bed together. Upon waking up on Sunday morning to a gorgeous crystal clear blue sky, I packed a picnic and we headed out to Stinson Beach for a long walk and a beautiful morning. A latte in hand, a Sunday paper tucked under our arms we drove over the Mountain to the beach. There is nothing like Stinson Beach on a sunny fall morning with a few people walking the two mile strand, dogs snapping at the water, and the water glistening like diamonds.
Halfway back, Zoe decides she needed to build a deep hole. No reason, no purpose, no destination, it just was what she felt like. Jean on all fours digging like a dog found himself immersed in enjoying the dig with her. An hour later we grabbed our picnic, chairs, and blanket and sat down to eat and read the paper. ---and so the day continued. It just flowed. Zoe wanted to see a friend and we called and picked her up 5 minutes later. (How often does that happen?) A quick play date (which now is evidentally called a date that she is ten). A quick stop at a friend's open house because it felt right, not because we were committed and the home for dinner and hanging out before bed.
Maybe it's the busyness of life, the fact that Jean is working fulltime with little flexibility, or that the day is actually shorter (being both winter and Zoe's school finishes at 3:15), but I am continuously talking to myself that it is okay to take time out to enjoy the small pleasures I so loved in France. Everyday I vacillate if I have time to go to yoga, time to sip a cup of coffee with a friend, time to walk the dog. This morning I woke up a bit earlier and lay in bed reading for a few minutes. With a remembrance of France, Jean brought me a cup of coffee and a few minutes later Zoe slipped into bed with her book and a piping hot mug of tea. For fifteen whole minutes we lay in bed, reading and sipping together before we felt the rush to get moving on the day. So what's the difference I asked myself? In St. Quentin, Zoe started school at 9 and it was a 2 minute walk. Today it is 8:15 and a 15 minute drive in the car (which is actually pretty quick). But that extra hour means we could get up a bit more leisurely without waking up at the crack of dawn. In either situation it was 9am before I was ready to start the day. Yoga, a walk, a cafe in the cafe or to the office to write; this was the big decisions each morning. Today, the decisions are the same, but feel different. I kept asking myself why? Why does it feel so different.
First I do believe that Jean not working from home (or even nearby), but on the road and gone all day has forced both of us to realize we don't like it. A luxury we have had, but something we can create again. There is no reason that he should be working where he is commuting 3-4 hours a day. It just doesn't make sense, except for now with the economy, it is what it is. Not for long--- our souls just can't tolerate it. I however, have more freedom to my day; albeit a shorter day. Instead of going to yoga from 9:30-11:00 as I also did in Uzes and having until 5pm to focus on my work. I now have only unti 3pm. A two hour shorter day. Now granted I have the extra time on Wednesday (before Zoe had no school) but even if I count working 3-4 hours more on Wednesday, I'm still missing 4 hours a week of time to work. Maybe I have just discovered how the French are more creative and more productive as the studies show???