The Happiness Lottery
In his 2023 paper on the rise of 21st-century solitude, Atalay, at the Philadelphia Fed, calculated that by one measure, sociability means considerably more for happiness than money does: A five-percentage-point increase in alone time was associated with about the same decline in life satisfaction as was a 10 percent lower household income.
Derek Thompson • The Anti-Social Century
It’s not money that determines our happiness, but the presence of some combination of these three attributes:
John Bogle • Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
Again, to reference myself, while I do believe in individual agency, I also believe societies come with strong forces that shape expectations and even shape people’s understanding of a ‘good life.’ That is, society provides citizens playbooks that they are urged to follow which are supposed to end in happily ever after, and ours is that you can... See more
Chris Arnade • Why are Americans Unhappy?
Thus, your satisfaction contributes, in a sense, to the general pool of satisfaction in the world. By enjoying life, you make life more enjoyable.