happiness

Contrary to what we might expect, the study found that the link between economic growth, as measured by GDP per capita, and life satisfaction weakened as countries became more affluent. In other words, once a certain economic threshold is reached, additional wealth does not significantly boost happiness.

While doing the reporting for my book, I read a postmortem from a successful startup founder. They said something along the lines of: “One of the best things that can happen to you is to achieve professional success when you’re young. That way you can learn that it does little to change your happiness.” For better or worse, achieving your goals

... See more

Maybe it’s not the achieving stuff that makes us happy, but rather the act of chasing after achievements. Most people need to feel that they are contributing to society. At least for me, when I try to picture my ideal days, it doesn’t matter if I’ve accomplished anything in the past. But my visions always involve working towards some kind of goal... See more