Issue time 7:45 am, by CTreit
Category:personal finance
Happiness leads to good personal finances. (Wait, it’s not the other way around?)
July 20th, 2010A little while ago I attended a bar mitzvah, the coming of age celebration for young Jewish “men” aged 13 years old. The officiating rabbi quoted one of the old sages who said something like this when his life was coming to an end, “I have been lucky in my life. I only wanted things when I actually had them.”
The attitude of this sage is relevant for personal finance, I’d say. I cannot say for sure how well this sage had his finances in order, but I am pretty certain that he was not rich and that he did not own all kinds of things like we in the U.S. do in this day and age. We are lead to believe that having things, that showing off a big house, driving a nice car, going to exotic places, etc., are the most important goals in life. Alas, economic statistics tell us that most of us fail in this endeavor anyway. But it kind of has to be that way, doesn’t it? Think about it – if everyone travels to exotic places, the places would cease to be exotic, wouldn’t they? If everybody could drive a nice car, the nice car would become the average car and would no longer be called “nice.” It’s the exclusive idea behind the “exotic” place and the “nice” car that matters.
As we pursue dreams of material wealth and “financial independence,” many of us get caught up in the “rat race” – hustling for more money, keeping a job that makes us miserable, getting stuck in aggravating commuter traffic every day… And for what? It is not as if each of us doing all this means we all attain these lofty goals of material wealth and financial independence.
What should we do instead? There is only one thing that really matters. Focus on having a good life. Make every day count in your life. Let yourself have good days at work and at home.
Having good days also means that you want to avoid financial stress. When you focus on having a good life, you very well will find out that things for which you spend money won’t make you that happy. As you spend less money on things, your personal finances will also improve even though you did not even make an effort to make them better. You only had to focus on having a good life. It is really that simple.
Perhaps you know this better-known quote about happiness – and I’ll end this post here – “Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.”
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