Happiness is on sale; get some

The price for happiness is now 30 percent off. This is not one of those today-only sales; in fact, happiness may be that rare product whose relative price, even with inflation, inches down over time. All society's worrisome problems aside, could this mean humanity is nevertheless getting wiser?

You've heard it before: "Money can't buy happiness."

In a way, science has also proved it, at least by empirical study.

In 2010, a broadly publicized Princeton survey of 450,000 Americans concluded that the tipping point at which more income brings more life satisfaction was $75,000. Up to $75,000, those polled felt better about life, their daily moods and outlook, and other people. Happier.

No shock there. The interesting part is that Nobel Prize-winning researcher Daniel Kahneman also found that incomes higher than that correlated with lower quality of life.

Let me repeat that. Two-year survey says: Middle class is good. Rich and poor, not so much.

Of course other factors showed an effect, such as divorce and poor health. Even in those cases the income curve also had an impact on how much their problems bothered respondents. Again income rises up to $75,000 made them feel better about their situations, but after that point it had no meaningful impact.

Henry David Thoreau wrote that the price of anything is the amount of life you must exchange for it. What's traded for relative riches? Time. Time to spend with family and friends, or for intellectual and spiritual pursuits. For work-at/from-home parents it means home-cooked meals and the flexibility to stay home on short notice, soccer, and drama practice. In my family it also means bringing food to enliven a weary newsroom just before payday. (Journalists are like the cops of the humanities, except it's pizza and Mexican food instead of doughnuts.)

I guess other than for trust fund babies, keeping up with the Joneses (these days, the Kardashians - ick) often means exchanging too much life. As Christian Science Monitor editor John Yemma put it, "(A) nation's gross domestic happiness is independent of rising income."

Yemma's GDH has gotten cheaper. So maybe Bill Gates and Oprah don't want to dump their millions; they seem pretty happy. Even so, the rest of us may not need to work as much for that target happy middle.

A 2012 poll by the Marist Institute found the salary tipping point has shrunk to $50,000. It also found a bigger surprise - that even above the tipping points people are equally worried about retirement (28 percent for those above; 27 percent, below). Makes one feel better about forgoing that more lucrative but more stressful career opportunity.

How much should I focus on tomorrow, at the expense of today? Does this bargain basement price mean less money buys the same comfort as two years ago? Of course not; food, housing, and gas prices make the answer obvious. I like to think the change is within us. Perhaps we are learning to be happy with less, to focus more outside ourselves, to need less "stuff." Perhaps seeing others (or ourselves) struggle with worldwide food shortages and economic recession has humbled us into remembering what's most important.

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network and may be reached at sholehjo@hotmail.com.