Why do some folks look back on their lives and say they wouldn’t change much? Or anything?
Is there a formula? Some mix of love, work, habits, or attitudes that offers the best chance of a well-lived life?
Researchers at Harvard have been examining this question for 72 years by following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s. (more…)
According to Dr. Jon D. Miller, Director of the Center for Biomedical Communications, the number of scientifically literate adults in the U.S. has doubled over the past 20 years.
The bad news? That only gets us up to 20 percent.
Only 48 percent of Americans know that humans didn’t live at the same time as dinosaurs. Less than half know that electrons are smaller than atoms. And few know what DNA is or can define a molecule.
We live in a world highly dependent on the fruits of science. Yet most of us have little scientific knowledge.
Does this matter? (more…)
I watched in horror as my 11-year-old daughter Hannah plunged 150 feet down Cheakamus Canyon toward the river raging below.
My wife Karen and I had both tried to talk her out of it. But she wouldn’t be dissuaded.
She wanted to jump.
Of course, she was attached to a bungee cord, one that “exceeded Australian specifications” (whatever that means). And Whistler Bungee — an hour north of Vancouver and just below Whistler’s 2010 Olympic Village — has been in business for seven years with a perfect safety record.
Still … I got the willies just looking down through the 300-foot span as we crossed it. This was a murderous height. It would have taken at least three burly men to get me out on that platform.
One indispensable quality affects every relationship in your life.
It holds together all your associations. It determines whether you realize your dreams, both personal and professional.
And it virtually defines you to others. Without it, true success is impossible.
Stephen M.R. Covey is even more emphatic. He writes:
“There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world — one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love.
“On the other hand, (more…)
When Norman Vincent Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking 60 years ago, he received a stack of rejection slips from publishers.
Dejected, he threw the manuscript into the trash, forbidding his wife to remove it. She didn’t.
The next day, however, she took the manuscript, still inside the wastebasket, to a publisher who accepted it. The book became a foundation of the human potential movement, selling more than 20 million copies in 47 languages.
Much of Peale’s homespun advice sounds quaint or even amusing to us today. Still, the book did a good job of articulating a basic truth:
To a great extent, you create your world with your thoughts. Most personal achievements begin with an abiding faith that we can and will accomplish them.
Even realizing your goals, however, will not lead to lasting satisfaction. That’s because human wants are insatiable.
Most of us are trapped on what psychologists call thehedonic treadmill. We work to achieve what we desire. Those things satisfy us for a while, but we soon adapt to them and dissatisfaction returns. So next time, we set the bar a little higher…
Our lives can easily become a pastiche of unfulfilled desires. We yearn for a better-paying job, more recognition, greater social status, a newer car, a bigger house, a firmer abdomen, perhaps even a sexier spouse.
Dissatisfaction is not all bad, of course. Desire can motivate us to achieve good things in our lives, too.
But a continual sense of lack creates anxiety. It undermines our satisfaction. Peace of mind eludes us.
Fortunately, the ancient Stoic philosophers had a technique you can use to override the adaptation process and recapture the contentment we seek. It’s called negative visualization.
The technique is to spend some time each day imagining that you have lost the things you value most. Vividly imagine, for example, that your job has just been terminated, that your house – with all your possessions – has burned to the ground, that your partner has left you, or that you have lost your sight, your hearing, or the use of your limbs.
This sounds horribly bleak, I know. But the Stoics were onto something here. They understood that everything we enjoy in life is simply “on loan” to us from Fortune. Any of it – all of it – can be recalled without a moment’s notice.
Epictetus reminds us, for example, that our children have been given to us “for the present, not inseparably nor forever.” His advice: In the very act of kissing your child, silently reflect on the possibility that she could die tomorrow.
The Roman philosopher Seneca advises us to live each day as if it were our last, indeed as if this very moment were our last. He’s not suggesting that you drop your responsibilities and squander the day in frivolous or hedonistic activities. He’s encouraging you to change yourstate of mind.
Maybe you are already living the dream you once had for yourself.
Along the way, however, you became jaded, bored, numb to the blessings that surround you. The goal of the Stoics would be to wake you up, to make you appreciate what you have today.
Some will argue that negative visualization is fine for those who are happy, healthy, and prosperous – but how about the troubled, the less fortunate?
Negative visualization works for them, too. If you have lost your job, imagine losing your possessions. If you have lost your possessions, imagine losing the people you love. If you have lost the people you love, imagine losing your health. If you have lost your health, imagine losing your life.
There is hardly a person alive who could not be worse off. That makes it hard to imagine someone who wouldn’t benefit from this technique.
Adaptation diminishes our enjoyment of the world. Negative visualization brings it back.
It also prepares us for life’s inevitable setbacks. Survivors of tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, for example, may suffer terribly. Yet afterward, they often tell us that they were just sleepwalking through life before. Now, they are joyously, thankfully alive.
No one should need a catastrophe to feel this way. You can attain the same realization through negative visualization. Moreover, it can be practiced regularly, so its beneficial effects, unlike a catastrophe, can last indefinitely.
Try it and you’ll see. I’ve found it’s perfect for when you’re standing in line or stuck in traffic, time that would be wasted otherwise.
By contemplating the impermanence of everything in your world, you can invest all your activities with more intensity, higher significance, greater awareness.
In sum, Norman Vincent Peale got it half-right. Positive visualization helps you get what you want. Negative visualization helps you want what you get.
[Ed. Note: Alex Green is Investment Director and Chairman of The Oxford Club, and is the bestselling author of The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters. His new book - described by Michael Masterson as "shockingly good" - explores money, meaning, and the pursuit of the good life. To pick up a copy, click here.]
Dividend-paying stocks may not be the most exciting investments on the block – but steady businesses that make regular payouts are what really make investors money over time.
As my Investment U colleague Mark Skousen writes in his book EconoPower, “Earnings may be suspicious due to creative accounting. Revenues can be booked in one year or several years. Capital assets can be sold and the value listed as ordinary income. But cash paid into your account is a sure thing, a litmus test of the company’s true earnings. It’s tangible evidence of the firm’s profitability.”
Here are some key terms to understand when investing in dividend-paying stocks:
• Declaration Date – The date on which the board of directors of a company announces the amount of the next stock dividend and its ex-dividend date, record date, and payment date.
• Ex-Dividend Date – The date on which the stock trades without a dividend. So if you buy the stock on or after the ex-dividend date, you will not receive the next dividend. If you sell the stock before the ex-dividend date, the buyer – not you – will receive the dividend. If you sell after the ex-dividend date, you – not the buyer – will receive the dividend.
• Record Date – The date on which the company determines the list of shareholders who qualify for the stock dividend. To be a shareholder of record, you must own the stock at least one day before the ex-dividend date.
• Payment Date – The date on which the stock dividend is paid to shareholders of record in the form of a dividend check or a credit to their account.
Adding dividend-paying stocks to your portfolio could be just the ticket for the steady growth of your bottom line.
[Ed. Note: Alex Green is Investment Director of The Oxford Club and Chairman of Investment U - a free source of impartial, no-nonsense advice on how to build long-lasting wealth. Get more of Alex's powerful wealth-building ideas right here.
Investing in dividend-paying stocks is a safe way to profit as an investor. But you can make plenty of cash simply by seeking out "non-traditional" investment opportunities. ETR's Liberty Street League offers its members dozens of contrarian strategies for making money "off Wall Street." Sign up today, and you could recover your recession losses by 9/30/2009.]
In last year’s best-seller Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, author Malcolm Gladwell points out that our “adaptive unconscious” is constantly making assessments about people and situations in just a matter of seconds.
He argues that these snap judgments are not just good, but extraordinary. For example, he cites a study showing that college students can watch short film clips of professors lecturing and rate them as accurately as students who spend an entire term with them, even when the clips are only two seconds long. (Two seconds!)
This is quirky and interesting, but I’m skeptical. Much of my own experience has rebutted this line of thinking.
How many times have you made a new acquaintance, thought you knew him, and then one day discovered he was not the person you thought he was? (Sometimes better, sometimes worse.) How many times have you been badgered, cajoled, or (okay) dragged to an event that turned out to be a lot of fun?
In making snap judgments, we often shortchange our friends, our family, our co-workers, even ourselves. We miss opportunities for new experiences and relationships. And, more often than not, we are almost completely unaware of it.
Investment legend John Templeton once wrote, “A successful life depends less on how long you live than on how much you can pack into the time you have. If you can find a way to make every day an adventure – even if it’s only a matter of walking down an unfamiliar street or ordering an untried cut of meat – you will find that your life becomes more productive, richer, and more interesting. You also become more interesting to others.”
Gladwell says that we’re much more apt to “think without thinking.” But the results of such thinking are biases that are not always on target…
When I first met my pal Rob Fix at work more than two decades ago, I had two overwhelming impressions. One, he talked too much, and, two, he was a bit of a kook. For several weeks, I avoided him like the IRS.
Then, at a party at a friend’s house, I noticed a crowd of people in the backyard. They were gathered around Rob, who had brought over his telescope and was busy showing everyone the moon, the planets, the Orion Nebula, and the Andromeda Galaxy.
“How far is it to the moon, anyway?” asked a young woman who was peering into the telescope.
“Now let me see,” said Rob, thinking out loud. “I just drove it the other day…”
“Hey,” I remember thinking to myself, “this guy isn’t so bad. He’s actually pretty funny.”
Of course, now that I’ve known Rob for 26 years I realize that my first impression of him was totally off base. He’s not a guy who talks too much and is a bit of a kook. He’s a guy who talks way too much and is the biggest kook I’ve ever met. He is, in fact, the world’s most lovable kook. Perhaps that’s why he was the best man at my wedding.
Our prejudgments can mislead us…
A friend declines tickets to a jazz concert because he knows he wouldn’t like it. My daughter Hannah turns up her nose at every food she doesn’t recognize. We pass on taking a weekend trip because we imagine “It won’t be worth it.”
Each day, we face making dozens of small decisions. For expediency, if nothing else, we lapse into the safe, the familiar, the unthinking – denying ourselves the pleasure of a new discovery.
Just ask Walker Percy. In his Foreword to John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, he describes how the book came to his attention:
“While I was a teacher at Loyola in 1976 I began to get telephone calls from a lady unknown to me. What she proposed was preposterous. It was not that she had written a couple of chapters of a novel and wanted to get into my class. It was that her son, who was dead, had written an entire novel during the early sixties, a big novel, and she wanted me to read it. Why would I want to do that? I asked her. Because it was a great novel, she said.
“Over the years I have become very good at getting out of things I don’t want to do. And if ever there was something I didn’t want to do, this was surely it: To deal with the mother of a dead novelist and, worst of all, to have to read a manuscript that she said was great, and that, as it turned out, was a badly smeared, scarcely readable carbon.
“But the lady was persistent, and it somehow came to pass that she stood in my office handing me the hefty manuscript. There was no getting out of it; only one hope remained – that I could read a few pages and that they would be bad enough for me, in good conscience, to read no farther. Usually I can do just that. Indeed the first paragraph often suffices. My only fear was that this one might be just good enough, so that I would have to keep reading.
“In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity: surely it was not possible that it was this good…”
Oh, it’s good all right. Walker Percy’s discovery went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and has since sold more than two million copies. The novel – which features the hilarious misadventures of slob extraordinaire Ignatius Reilly – is now regarded as a comic masterpiece.
Let’s be grateful that Percy didn’t follow his intuition, his instant assessment, his inner “blink.” And just maybe we should keep a close eye on our own, too.
Life really is full of surprises. But “thinking without thinking” may not be the best way to discover them.
[Ed. Note: Relying solely on your snap judgments could be keeping you from taking advantage of powerful opportunities. One of the most common snap judgments we see at ETR is people who think, "No way. An Internet business isn't right for me." The truth is, practically anyone can start his or her own Internet business - and make it profitable. For a step-by-step guide to doing just that, click here.
And be sure to join Alex Green, Chairman of Investment U and Investment Director of The Oxford Club, as he tackles some of life's more difficult challenges in his free, twice-weekly e-letter Spiritual Wealth. Get your roadmap to a rich life here.]
We all have troubles. In many ways, they define our lives. But, according to philosopher Abraham Kaplan, we can deal with them more effectively if we recognize them as either problems or predicaments.
The difference? Problems, says Kaplan, can be solved. Predicaments can only be coped with.
If you work in downtown Baltimore, for example, you may be worried about crime. This is a predicament, not a problem. You can install a security system in your car, avoid the worst areas after dark, or arrange a transfer to a different office. But these are coping mechanisms. You are not going to “fix” crime in Baltimore.
A more serious predicament we all face is the occasional death of a loved one. We can spend time grieving with family and friends, join a support group, or take up new activities to keep our minds from becoming preoccupied. But death itself cannot be bargained with.
Fortunately, most of our troubles are not predicaments but problems.
You may worry, for instance, that you haven’t saved enough for a comfortable retirement. If so, you have plenty of company. According to the 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), 36 percent of workers have less than $10,000 in retirement savings. Another 13 percent have less than $25,000.
Clearly, this is a problem, but one with a straightforward solution. You can make more. You can spend less. Or you can earn a higher return on your investments. (Doing all three isn’t bad either.)
Or, you may be one of the millions of Americans who struggle with obesity. If so, it is probably having a detrimental effect on your health, your self-image, and your quality of life. And for some, this is both a problem and a predicament. After all, genetics determine your basic body type. As you learned in fifth-grade health class, you were born an ecotomorph, a mesomorph, or an endomorph. You cannot change this. But anyone can eat better, exercise more, or both. Not easy, but there is a solution.
Why is it important to label the trials you face as either problems or predicaments?
According to John C. Maxwell, author of The Difference Maker, “When people treat a predicament as a problem, they become frustrated, angry, or depressed. They waste energy. They make bad decisions. And when people treat problems as predicaments, they often settle, give up, or see themselves as victims.”
Understand this and you’ve taken the first step toward dealing with your predicaments and solving your problems.
Nielsen Media Research tells us that Americans love reality shows where contestants are put in high-pressure situations and challenged to “win” by using every bit of intelligence, cunning, and resourcefulness they can muster. Why not view your own problems the same way? If you have a boring job, an inattentive spouse, or a looming financial setback, why not use all your smarts, imagination, and creativity to turn the tables?
My guess is that if you were in front of a national television audience – and in danger of being voted off the show – you’d come up with something pretty good, something that would surprise the people around you.
In fact, this is exactly what you should be doing, according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He argues that the quickest way to increase your life satisfaction is to quit seeing your problems as difficulties and start viewing them as enjoyable challenges.
Facing your problems this way requires just two things: a bit of imagination and a positive attitude. The payoff, in turn, can be huge.
Whether you want to start your own business, lose 30 pounds, or get out of debt, you can begin by relishing the challenge. You might surprise yourself, too. Not only by achieving your goals, but by seeing how much satisfaction you get just by moving toward them in a disciplined way.
Think of it as your own reality show. (One that, ironically, actually deals with reality.) The obstacles in front of you give you the opportunity to show the world – and yourself – what you’re made of.
So why not attack those obstacles today with a fresh mindset and a new attitude? You have nothing to lose but your troubles.
[Ed. Note: Happiness is well within your reach. Learn how you can make your life richer – in both senses of the word – right here.
And be sure to join Alex Green, Chairman of Investment U and Investment Director of The Oxford Club, as he tackles some of life’s more difficult challenges in his free, twice-weekly e-letter Spiritual Wealth. Sign up here.
I recently attended an Oxford Club chapter meeting at the Grove Park Inn, a historic hotel on the western slope of Sunset Mountain near Asheville, NC.
Passing the enormous stone hearth in the lobby one morning, I noticed an engraving on one of the stones. It was a quatrain by Frank L. Stanton, a columnist for The Atlanta Constitution in the 1890s: “This world that we’re a- livin’ in / Is mighty hard to beat; / You git a thorn with every rose / But ain’t the roses sweet!”
This was once the most quoted poem in the country. But the mood has changed.
According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Americans’ views on the general state of the country have hit an all-time low, with 81 percent saying the prospects for the United States are declining… the worst-ever number for this barometer.
Some will argue that this just reflects the current economic slowdown or the monumental unpopularity of President Bush. But pollsters report that, for decades now, large percentages have said the country is going downhill, life is getting tougher, our children face a declining future, and the world, in general, is going to hell in a handbasket.
Clearly, we have serious problems. There is the threat of nuclear proliferation, the specter of terrorism, and the unpleasant fact that our troops are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From an economic perspective, the federal deficit keeps growing, home prices are falling, the currency is weak, food and fuel prices have jumped, credit is tight, and the stock market recently entered bear market territory.
No wonder Americans are in a foul mood. Especially if this perspective – one that is repeated endlessly by the national media – accurately represents the big picture.
But it doesn’t.
The media delivers the world through a highly distorted lens. It doesn’t report buildings that don’t burn, planes that don’t crash, or companies that are hiring instead of laying off.
You wouldn’t know it by listening to the pundits, but our general lot is getting better, not worse.
As Greg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Living standards are the highest they have ever been, including the living standards for the middle class and the poor. All forms of pollution other than greenhouse gases are in decline; cancer, heart disease, and stroke incidence are declining; crime is in a long-term cycle of significant decline, and education levels are at all-time highs.”
Despite the gloomy headlines, most of us have it pretty darn good.
Consider that in the first half of the twentieth century, most people earned a subsistence living through long hours of backbreaking work on farms or in factories. On the whole, Americans now work less, have more purchasing power, enjoy goods and services in almost unlimited supply, and have much more leisure.
In the first half of our nation’s history, most Americans lived and died within a few miles of where they were born. Nothing traveled faster than a horse and, as far as they knew, nothing ever would. Today, we have instantaneous global communication, 24-hour broadband Internet access, and same-day travel to distant cities.
Formal discrimination against women and minorities has ended. There is mass home ownership, with central heat and air-conditioning and endless labor-saving devices: stoves, ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves, and computers.
Medicine was almost non-existent 80 years ago. In 1927, for example, President Calvin Coolidge’s 16-year-old son Calvin Jr. developed a blister by playing tennis without wearing socks. It became infected. Five days later, he died. Before the advent of antibiotics, tragedies like these were routine.
Advances in medicine and technology have eliminated most of history’s plagues. There has been a stunning reduction in infectious disease.
We complain about the rising cost of health care. But that’s only because we routinely live long enough to depend on it. The average American lifespan has almost doubled over the past century.
In short, we enjoy economic and political freedoms denied to billions throughout history. We live long lives, in good health and in comfortable circumstances. By almost any measure, we are living better than 99.9 percent of those who have inhabited this planet.
Yet we routinely tell pollsters that life is hard and things are getting steadily worse.
I think it’s time to take the larger view.
In The Progress Paradox, Easterbrook writes:
“Perhaps Western society has lost its way, producing material goods in impressive superfluity but also generating so much stress and pressure that people cannot enjoy what they attain. Perhaps men and women must reexamine their priorities, demanding less, caring more about each other, appreciating what they have rather than grousing about what they do not have, giving more than lip service to the wisdom that money cannot buy happiness.”
How do we do this? We can re-order our lives so that they are less hectic, less stressful.
We all have problems. But as Robert Ringer says, whatever your troubles, the odds are small that anyone is going to throw you up against the wall and pull out a machine gun.
We can start improving the quality of our lives simply by changing our perspective. And we can accept that if something is missing in our lives, it is probably a sense of gratitude, not material possessions.
It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate your incredible good fortune just to be alive.
In Unweaving the Rainbow, Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins writes: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
True, it’s not a perfect world. But it’s the only one we’ve got. And we’re only here once.
Still, as my Dad used to say, “If you work it right, once is enough.”
[Ed. Note: If you take a look at the big picture, you're incredibly lucky. And one reason you are so blessed is because you have the opportunity to change your situation. One problem you can tackle right away is your finances. Alexander Green - editor of the free e-letter Spiritual Wealth and the Investment Director of The Oxford Club - can help you find solutions to your financial troubles in his new book, The Gone Fishin' Portfolio.He reveals his proven, market-beating investment strategy that empowers you to successfully manage your own money. Learn how to turn $100,000 into $1.3 million minus much of the stock market's risk right here.]
A few months ago, I received a phone call from George Rupp.
Rupp is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Founded by Albert Einstein, the IRC serves refugees and communities victimized by oppression or violent conflict. When thousands run from natural disasters, war, or repression, the IRC is there, providing food and water, shelter, healthcare, and education.
Every Thanksgiving for the past few years, I’ve been sending Oxford Club members a letter reminding them how incredibly rich our lives are and asking them to remember the IRC, the world’s recognized leader in humanitarian emergencies.
I had never heard of George Rupp, however, until I got that phone call. "I’m just calling to let you know how much you’ve inspired us – our whole organization – with your letter," he said.
Embarrassed, I mumbled something in response.
"We’re planning to read it to Tom Brokaw and the other directors at the annual board meeting Wednesday. We’d also like to turn it into a national fundraising letter. Would that be all right with you?"
All right? I felt like I’d just been injected with 100 mL of pure dopamine. I love the IRC. I love sharing its mission.
By the time I got off the phone, my wife said I was acting so goofy I might as well take the rest of the day off. When I walked outside, the sky was bluer, the neighbor’s dog was friendlier, and the birds, I was sure, were singing in counterpoint. It was a weird feeling, really, and it left me scratching my head.
But now I’m beginning to understand it. New scientific studies show that we’re actually hardwired to feel good – and live longer – by helping others.
Dr. Stephen Post, a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine, says, "The remarkably good news is that, over the past ten years, we have about five hundred serious scientific studies that demonstrate the power of [generosity] to enhance health."
You’ve always known that giving is its own reward. Now science has discovered a slew of side benefits as well.
Here are just a few key findings:
Not bad. And there are many ways to give. Money, of course, is how most organizations get things done. But there are effective ways to donate your time, as well:
Volunteer. According to Doug Oman of the University of California at Berkeley, "Volunteering is associated with substantial reductions in mortality."
Create a Network of Giving. Find others who are isolated or ignored and invite them to join you. Studies show that all of you are likely to benefit.
Become a Mentor. Nothing is more beneficial to the young than connecting with a caring adult who inspires them.
Pass the Torch. As an older adult, you have accumulated a lifetime of wisdom and experience. Recognize your own value – and share it with others.
Biologist David Sloan Wilson says, "We have said since millennia – in fact, this has been a fundamental tenet of religion – that if you do good things, it will reflect back to you, not immediately, not every time, but in general. This is a deeply entrenched notion."
And now science is confirming it.
Giving is a simple act. Yet studies show that generous behavior may do more to protect and extend your health than vitamin supplements, green tea, fish oil, or an aspirin a day.
Each of us is flawed in a hundred ways. But giving redeems us. It ennobles us. It helps us create a better version of ourselves.
In his book Why Good Things Happen to Good People Dr. Post writes, "You wish to be happy? Loved? Safe? Secure? You want to turn to others in tough times and count on them? You want the warmth of true connection? You’d like to walk into the world each day knowing that this is a place of benevolence and hope? Then I have one answer: Give. Give daily, in small ways, and you will be happier. Give and you will be healthier. Give and you will even live longer."
[Ed. Note: Happiness is well within your reach. Learn how you can make your life richer - in both senses of the word - right here.
And be sure to join Alexander Green, Chairman of Investment U and Investment Director of The Oxford Club, as he tackles some of life’s more difficult challenges in his free, twice-weekly e-letter Spiritual Wealth. Sign up here.
Economists Sara Solnick and David Hemenway recently conducted a survey where they asked participants if they would rather earn $50,000 a year while other people made $25,000, or earn $100,000 a year while others got $250,000.
Sit down for this one. The majority of participants selected the first option. They would rather make twice as much as others, even if that meant earning half as much as they could have with the second option.
This is completely nuts, of course. Yet other findings by Solnick and Hemenway confirmed the envious nature of contemporary culture. People said, for instance, that they would rather be average-looking in a community where no one is considered attractive than merely good-looking in the company of stunners.
When it came to education, parents said they would rather have an average child in a crowd of dunces than a smart child in a class full of brilliant students.
What is going on here? In his book The Mind of the Market, Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer writes, "Our sense of happiness tends to be based on positional and relative rankings compared to what others have."
There’s one problem, however. That doesn’t work.
As the philosopher Bertrand Russell pointed out, "Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed."
Of all the dissatisfactions we face, surely none is more menial than envy. It denies us contentment, is a waste of time, and is an insult to ourselves. Worst of all, it’s completely self-imposed.
"Envy is the most stupid of vices," wrote Honore de Balzac, "for there is no single advantage to be gained from it."
Face it. We all know people who are smarter, fitter, richer, funnier, more talented, or better looking. But so what?
Thinking this way only keeps you from appreciating your own uniqueness and self-worth, things that, not incidentally, do lead to greater happiness. Especially when combined with a strong sense of purpose.
As Shermer writes, "Feeling ennobled is a pleasurable emotion that arises out of this deepest sense of purpose. Although there are countless activities people engage in to satisfy this deep-seated need, the research shows that there are four means by which we can bootstrap ourselves toward happiness through purposeful action." These include:
Note that psychologists have yet to discover a route to happiness by comparing oneself to others. (Although it never hurts to measure yourself against your own ideals.)
Concentrating on your own fortunes – and improving those of others – is guaranteed to generate more satisfaction than sizing up the Joneses. Besides, if you knew everything the other guy was dealing with, you might prefer your own circumstances anyway.
In other words, don’t begrudge the other guy his blessings. Count your own, instead. As Mark Twain said, "Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead."
[Ed. Note: Alexander Green is Chairman of Investment U and Investment Director of The Oxford Club. Although he still writes investment commentary for both publications, he now tackles some of life's more difficult challenges in his free, twice-weekly e-letter Spiritual Wealth. Learn how to grapple with the big questions in your life by signing up here.]
For proven advice and hands-on guidance for accomplishing your goals, check out ETR’s Total Success Achievement program. Learn more here.]