"Money: It's a hit"

     Why?
     Do yourself a favor and ask that question as you contemplate what you want in life.  Ask it over and over.  Answer it honestly.  Why?
     "I want to go to a good college."  Why?
     "So I can get a good job."  Why do you want a good job?
     "So I can make a good income."   Why do you want a good income?
     "So I can get the things I want, like a nice house, etc."  Why do you want these things?
     "So I can be happy."
      Bing.  Answer found.  So I can be happy.  Happiness is the end.  Everything else is a means.  No matter what direction you seek in life, it all leads back to that critical goal: life-satisfaction.

      Yet given that happiness is the end goal, how often do we become overly focused on the means?  Why don't we just skip worrying about the filler and go straight to the source?  Why is it that we think more about how we can make money or get nice stuff than we think about how we can be happier?  America, it seems, isn't asking the right questions.

    In 1950, Viktor Frankl, a man who wrote about and studied how certain Holocaust survivors found purpose in life while living in concentration camps, surveyed college freshmen in America.  41 percent wanted to make a lot of money.  83 percent wanted to develop a meaningful philosophy of life. Nearly fifty years later, in 1997, those numbers shifted dramatically.  Guess how many freshmen wanted to make a lot of money in 1997? 75 percent.  How many wanted a meaningful life? 41 percent. (1)   Three-fourths of our college freshmen want a lot of money.  Less than half care about having a meaningful life.

Phew! Now he'll be happy forever.

    Why should this matter? Because three-fourths of our future society is focused on the irrelevant.  More and more, research is suggesting that once basic needs are met, an increase in wealth does nothing to increase overall well-being (2)  Purchasing power has more than doubled in the United States in the last fifty years, yet life satisfaction hasn't changed a bit.  America has the top purchasing power of all developed countries, yet ranks 24th out of 29 developed countries in life satisfaction. (3)  Researchers have even found that impoverished street-dwellers in Calcutta, India rank higher in life satisfaction than the average Joe or Jane in Fresno, California.  But it's Cal-i-FOR-nia! Everyone is happy on their long boards and golf outings in the commercials!  I could go on with a litany of similar research but I'll spare you so you can spend more time watching re-runs of MTV Cribs. 

     Money doesn't buy happiness.  Bla bla bla.  Deep down we know this right?  I'm not so sure . . . Over the past three years I've seen the materialist effect consume our students.  Post Secondary Prep students bragged about how much money they'd make in their future careers as lawyers (un-fun fact: this prestigious profession has the highest rate of both depression and suicide. Wah wah.) (4)  Other students maunder about the new technology they want, the "happiness" they'll have when they get a nice car, a nice house, or go to a nice college.  Then, one day, I asked my tenth graders one of the most important questions I've ever asked: "What makes you happy?"  I hadn't seen that much confusion in their faces since they found out that "euthanasia" has nothing to do with teens in China (true story).

    From that point on, the focus was channeled on the ultimate currency of our existence: Happiness.  Students spent the last six weeks looking at the research on happiness -- exploring how age relates to happiness (positive correlation), how goal-setting relates to happiness (positive correlation), and how money relates to happiness (plateauing correlation beyond basic need fulfillment).  We reflected, we debated, we applied the research to our own lives.  Bucket lists were made, goals were set, and critical reflections were written.  The nature of our literature was shifted.  Why is there so much unhappiness in The Great Gatsby when they are filthy rich?  Why does even the thought of Lennie and George's goal make them so happy in Of Mice and Men?  How does "Dr Heidegger's Experiment" conflict with the research showing that older age leads to more happiness?

    As we close out our trimester, our final assignment is a one-on-one conversation about the nature of "The American Dream" and how it connects to our literature and life.  Students state that they will teach their kids that setting and working for self-concordant goals is most critical in life as long as it makes them happy.  They report that resilience is the most important thing a person needs, that pursuing happiness is the ultimate goal. 

    Will this philosophy change as students move to the next stage of life?  Possibly.  Will they still see sweet new technology and cars as answers to their unhappiness? Maybe.  In the end, I only need them to ask one question, and to make that answer their focus.  And that question is Why?  

    So go ahead and ask yourself that question right now.  Why are you doing what you are doing? I hope the answer makes you happy. 


(1) Ben-Shahar, Tal, Happier, 2007. 
(2)  http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2016291,00.html
(3)  Seligman, Martin, Authentic Happiness, 2002
(4) http://www.lawyerswithdepression.com/lawyersunhappy.asp and Authentic Happiness