Money, Time, Status & Happiness
What does it mean to be successful or happy?
For as long as I can remember, progress and success were always directly correlated with time and linear. It depends on the person, but I think that this narrative is still out in the wild today. This may be true for some, but is this the rule or is this the exception? I’ve seen versions of this illustration scattered throughout the web, so I put this one together to make sense of it in my own way. Gary Vaynerchuk has a video out there somewhere mentioning something along the lines of “What matters to 30-year-old James today may not matter to 31-year-old James tomorrow”. This is absolutely true. Our perspectives, objectives and goals shift over time and as a result of events and interactions. Life changes as time passes. People get older, less or more wiser, have kids or don’t, become less or more passionate about anything in life such as partners, hobbies, and careers. People experience loss, wars, politics, fallouts, heartbreak and more. The metric by which we measure growth, success, and purpose is influenced many factors. All of these are unique to each person. I could not find an illustration with more of these factors that adds more dimension to the overall picture. So, I made one.
The above illustration only accounts for a few factors, but it paints the picture a little more clearly for me. It feels more relative because it adds another dimension, kind of like a GPS plot point.
- 20-year-old James earns $36,000 annually and is the happiest he will ever be. He’s happy because he feels fulfilled with his work, is physically and mentally healthy, has a partner to share experiences with, and they will be going on vacation to Spain in ten days.
- 30-year-old James earns $55,000 annually and is at the lowest point in his life. He spends 14 hours per day working, spends very little time with his two children and his wife, and has a broken arm from falling off of the ladder.
- 45-year-old James earns $52,000 annually and is somewhere in the middle. He had one child at 20 years old, watched her grow up and experience life. He balances his life with his work, recently purchased a piece of art he has wanted, and one of his parents just passed away.
Perspective matters. Factors matter. The environment and the state of mind both matter. A mentor of mine, Charles Hodge, introduced me to a psychological concept named the Hedonic Treadmill. In a nutshell, it’s a baseline for happiness grounded in controlling how much influence a good or bad event in life has on someone’s overall happiness. This is a construct that I, personally, must revisit at least once per week to ensure I am looking at life as clearly as I can, because I was someone who thought that as long as I continue to earn more money over time, my happiness will surely track with it! Hint: that is not the case.