Our year end recap continues today with the articles published in May.
After learning about life planning, personal finance basics, and time management and productivity, we started exploring the world of happiness.
Following our introduction to happiness in April, we went on to spend the month of May diving into the intersection of money and happiness. Continue reading “How to Buy Happiness”
For the last couple weeks we’ve been revisiting the themes that we’ve spent 2018 exploring.
We have already reviewed what we learned about life planning, personal finance basics, and time management and productivity.
Today we’re getting into the good stuff. Today we learn about happiness. Continue reading “How to Be Happier”
2018 is a year of self-improvement.
I’m spending each month exploring a different area of life and figuring out how best to improve and optimize.
As of the last quarterly update we had covered life planning, personal finance basics, time management, the science of happiness, money and happiness, and health.
Since then, we’ve added philosophy and happiness, investing and the economy, and relationships.
Let’s check in for the third quarter update. Continue reading “Better Life – Third Quarter Update”
We’re spending the month of May exploring the intersection between money and happiness.
We’ve already learned that money CAN buy happiness, but that you’re probably spending it wrong.
One way to get more happiness out of your money is to indulge in small sporadic treats. You can also practice gratitude and avoid comparing your stuff to others.
Another way is to spend your money on experiences rather than stuff. Continue reading “The Best Happiness Bang for Your Buck”
Generally when we think about what will make us happy, we think of situational things.
If we could get that promotion, lose a few pounds, make more money, or have whiter teeth, then we’d be happy.
As we learned last week, though, these only account for 10% of our happiness.
It’s even more dire than that, however. Any improvements in our happiness within this 10% are only temporary, thanks to hedonic adaptation. Continue reading “Why You Aren’t Getting Any Happier”
Gretchen Rubin wrote a book on forming habits called Better Than Before.
There are a few other good books on habits (I recommend Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit), but Rubin’s big innovation was identifying different personality types. Some habit-building techniques work for some people, but there are very few universal approaches that work for everyone. Rubin divides her readers into four groups and then provides tips specific to each group.
Under Rubin’s framework, I am a Questioner.
“Questioners question all expectations, and they respond to an expectation only if they conclude that it makes sense. They’re motivated by reason, logic, and fairness. They wake up and think, ‘What needs to get done today, and why?’ They decide for themselves whether a course of action is a good idea, and they resist doing anything that seems to lack sound purpose.”
Beyond habit-building, this is a pretty good view into my permanent mindset. I ask “Why?” about pretty much everything, and if the answer is any variation of “Because that’s how we’ve always done it” then I’m out.
Over the last couple weeks I’ve run through a lot of my philosophy behind saving and investing. I discussed that I invest at least as much as I spend every month because I want to buy options for my life, because I see the value of labor declining over time, and because I don’t want to need to start a new career path if mine gets automated out of existence.
The big question for most people at this point is: “Is it worth it?” Continue reading “Is It Worth It? (Why I Save So Much, Part 4)”
Last week Cait Flanders wrote about how some people treated happiness as a general vibe that they exude and others pursued happiness as a destination. Thinking about this idea started me on a path that had me digging back through my notes on happiness research.
Our culture tends to treat happiness as a destination. Happiness is a goal for which you strive. And of course, the most surefire way to reach happiness is to be successful.
If we stop and think about this premise though, it falls apart. If success causes happiness, then we should be able to see the results. Continue reading “Happiness Causes Success”
I apologize in advance for the inherent humblebraginess of vacation pictures. I did warn you, though.
I am generally a pretty frugal person. Three of my last four posts have been about saving money. I’ve written about cognitive biases that get in the way of saving money. I’ve written about the best way to hit savings goals.
And yet, I just spent a whole bunch of money on a three-week vacation to South Africa and Spain. This came thirteen months after a trip to Peru. Which itself came eight months after a honeymoon in the Bahamas (which, to be fair, was paid for with hotel points).
This may seem out of character or incongruent with my savings focus. But I don’t save money for the sake of saving money. I don’t intend to be the richest man in the cemetery. And while I would love to reach financial independence, I am not aiming to get there as soon as possible by any means necessary. Instead, I want to live my best (and happiest) life with as little waste as possible. Continue reading “How to Buy Happiness”
In looking into ways of dealing with disappointment we explored the Stoic practice of imagining the things that could go wrong in our lives. This is a great tool for helping us blunt the painful feeling of disappointment that accompanies loss.
However, this is not the only benefit to this practice.
Continue reading “The Ancient Art of Being Thankful for What We Have”
