What The Research Says
- Spending time with others and forming and maintaining positive relationships has been reliably proven to be strongly correlated to increased happiness as measured by subjective well being.
- Spending money and time on experiences with other people rather than goods has also been reliably showed to improve subjective well being, this is even more pronounced when those expenditures are altruistic or otherwise other-focused.
- There is a strong relationship between having and maintaining strong, positive relationships with family, friends and community and improved health and longevity, unfortunately, negative relationships can actually have the opposite effect.
- To the degree that either purely leisure or purely work focused time allocations negatively effect relationships, they can also negatively effect health.
- To the degree that having a work focus leads to more meaningful work, promotion and reductions in stress, focusing on work (as long as it does not have strong negative impacts on relationships) can lead to improved health outcomes.
- Respect from others in your environment (whether work or relationships) is also strongly correlated to improved subjective well being.
- Moving from part-time to full-time work tends to correlate to increased happiness, but from full time to significantly longer work hours does not.
- Spending time volunteering or participating in a community has been shown to improve subjective well being, though the direction of the correlation is not clear.
References
- Happiness (Stanford)
- 5 Reliable Findings From Happiness Research (Psych Central)
- The Health Benefits of Strong Relationships (Harvard Women’s Health Watch)
- Social Determinant of Health: The Solid Facts (Google Books)
- Respect Matters More Than Money For Happiness in Life (Science Daily)
- The 10 Things Economics Can Tell Us About Happiness (The Atlantic)
The Choices
Leisure Focus – You can recite the entire network television Fall lineup from memory ordered by the actors first appearance in TMZ.
Score: No Change
Work Focus – You spend so much time in the office that you’re considering just forwarding your mail there.
Score: +1 Wealth, +1 Happiness
Relationship Focus – You’re the sort who when they say, “let’s hang out,” really means it, much to the chagrin of your comically anti-social friends and family.
Score: +1 Happiness, +1 Wealth