Is Success the Path to Happiness?

The answer to that question of whether success will lead to happiness or not will no doubt depend on the individual.  It may even depend on what stage of life one is in.  We often think of young people as being ambitious.  And as we get older in the later stages of life, we begin to realize that material wealth may not be the path to happiness.

Understandably, many people have thought about this question and have come up with varying ranges of answers.   This article will not be able to answer this age-old question.  But perhaps, it may give you something to think about.

Consider the following hypothetical conversation of say a young ambitious executive stuck in traffic on his way home from work...

Young ambitious executive:  "Oh geez, this traffic is so bad. Come on. Let's get moving."

Imaginary older wise man:  "You are coming home from work. Why are you in a rush?"

Young ambitious executive: "Because I want to get home fast so that I have enough time to finish the writing the report."

Imaginary older wise man:  "Why do you want to finish writing the report?"

Young ambitious executive: "So that I can be successful at work."

Imaginary older wise man:  "Why do you want to be successful at work?"

Young ambitious executive: "So I can make more money"

Imaginary older wise man:  "Why do you want to make more money?"

Young ambitious executive: "So I can buy a fancier car and a bigger house."

Imaginary older wise man:  "Why do you want a fancier car in a bigger house?"

Young ambitious executive: "So that I can be happy."

As the hypothetical conversation demonstrates, the reason why we all do anything (whether it is wanting to move faster in traffic, or succeeding at work, etc) is ultimately to be happy. If you ask ourselves why we do something, and ask why in deeper and deeper layers, we find that perhaps our ultimate goal is just to be happy. But is being successful the way to achieve happiness? And will making more money make us happy?

Richard Davidson says ...

"For the average American citizen, his or her idea of what would make them happy is flawed. That is... We are not good at predicting or forecasting what would make us happy."^[1]

Davidson is a neuro-psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that talked to Steve Paulson in an interview on Best of Our Knowledge.

Davidson says that these material things may make a transient difference to happiness, but does not produce a sustained happiness. He tells of a study where lottery winners will fall back to their original baseline happiness after some time.

When you get a new car, you would be happy for a while. But then you get used to your new car, and the car is no longer new anymore. You have adapted to your new circumstance and fall back to baseline happiness. This is the concept of hedonic adaptation.

Some call it the "hedonic treadmill". Jonathan Haidt describes it well on page 86 of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom:

"On an exercise treadmill you can increase the speed all you want, but you stay in the same place. In life, you can work as hard as you want, and accumulate all the riches ..., but you can't get ahead. Because you can't change your "natural and usual state of tranquility," the riches you accumulate will just raise your expectations and leave you no better off than you were before. Yet, not realizing the futility of our efforts, we continue to strive, all the while doing things that help us win at the game of life. Always wanting more than we have, we run and run and run, like hamsters on a wheel."

A paper titled "Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness" in Science Magazine says that "how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically, we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself."

Then perhaps there is another way to achieve happiness without success.

Satish Kumar, a former monk, tells Steve Paulson that he has "no stress at all".^[1]

Kumar says ..."Stress is because we are worried. Am I going to achieve? I'm not trying to achieve anything. There is nothing to achieve. Action in itself is its own reward. ... I'm not interested in any outcome. I'm not interested in any achievement. I'm not trying to get somewhere. I'm not trying to succeed in my life. My life is not about success. My life is about self-realization and fulfillment. And if we seek fulfillment, then we have no stress. If we seek success, we will have stress."^[1]

Another example that comes to mind is the story of Michael Gates Gill who used to be an successful executive. Then later in life he became a Starbucks barista. He found that he was happier as a barista, even though he had less money. You can read his story "Happier Working as Starbucks Barista Than as An Executive".

[1] The Best of Our Knowledge by Wisconsin Public Radio program 09-04-12-A