The price of happiness

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The price of happiness

You don't need millions to be happy. At The Happiness Institute in Australia, a couple of hundred dollars may do the trick.

Since the institute opened its doors this year, men and women of all ages have been paying A$200 an hour (U.S.$140) for lessons in how to feel great.

Businesses are spending as much as A$6,000 on half-day happiness workshops for their staff.

"You can actually increase your happiness levels. That's what we teach," said Timothy Sharp, founder of institute, which also offers group sessions from A$30 a head.

"We take people from zero and try to put a positive in their happiness bank account. You don't have to settle just for OKness. It's no more OK than having a zero bank balance. You can have a lot more," Sharp told Reuters.

Experts say only about 15 percent of happiness comes from income, assets and other financial factors. As much as 90 percent comes from elements such as attitude, life control and relationships.

"If you're not a natural in any of these areas you can learn to get a lot better at them," Sharp said.

The Happiness Institute is part of what U.S. economist Paul Zane Pilzer calls the "Wellness Revolution."

In his book of the same name, Pilzer says the next trillion-dollar industry after cars and information technology will be in preventative businesses that help people find peace, health and happiness.

Basic needs
While most of us are significantly better off financially than our parents and grandparents, happiness levels haven't changed to reflect that.

Studies show that once the basic needs of shelter and food are met, additional wealth adds very little to happiness.

"It's definitely not a guarantee. The difference between someone on say $30,000 a year and someone on $300,000 a year is actually very small. A lot of people are surprised by that," Sharp said.

"The economists are saying 'well, why haven't there been changes? Because on economic measures there have been huge changes'."

Craig Barber, general manager of a hotel in Sydney, had five one-on-one sessions at The Happiness Institute and organized a series of four-hour group sessions with Sharp for his staff.

"You could hear a pin drop. At each break I walked around the tables and there wasn't a doodle in sight. They were so into it, paying so much attention," Barber said.

More sex
Even investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein has warned not to "equate money with happiness."

"A vast array of individuals seriously overrate the importance of money in making themselves, and others, happy," said strategist James Montier in a recent memo to clients.

"Since the 1950s, people's happiness levels have been remarkably constant despite a massive growth in income-per-head over the same time horizon," he said.

Among the top 10 generators of happiness, alongside sleep, exercise and enjoying the moment, was sex.

"So what are you waiting for?" the memo said.

A 2003 study of 1,000 working women also found sex was rated as producing the largest amount of happiness. Commuting was the least pleasurable activity.

"People who have more and better quality relationships tend to be happier," said Sharp.

Economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of Warwick University studied 16,000 Americans and calculated that going from having sex monthly to weekly gave about the same happiness as a $50,000 raise.

However, Blanchflower admitted he wasn't sure if happiness led to more sex or more sex led to happiness.

Envy
Many decades ago, the "sage of Baltimore" editor Henry Louis Mencken defined wealth as earning $100 more than your "wife's sister's husband." Behavioural economists now say part of the reason we are richer but not happier is because we compare ourselves to people better off materially.

"The argument is that if you want to be happy there's a very simple thing you can do: compare yourself to people who are less well off than you: poorer, smaller house, car," said Sharp.

"What a lot of people do is quite the opposite and that's one of the causes of frustration and status anxiety," he said.

Cornell University Professor Robert Frank says a majority of Americans, asked whether they would rather earn $110,000 while everyone else earned $200,000, or earn $100,000 while everyone else earned $85,000, chose option B.

"The kind of house people feel they need depends on the kind of house that others around them have," said Frank in his paper "Spend more, save less: Why living in a rich society makes us feel poorer."

The Happiness Institute aims to show you how to overcome these unhappiness drivers by focusing on "more than just your bank balance."

"If I compare myself to Bill Gates then I'm always going to be well down," said Sharp, adding a better benchmark might be Kerry Packer, Australia's richest person who has had a kidney transplant and heart surgery in recent years.

"On a health scale I'd like to think I'm leagues ahead of him. Would you really want to have $4 billion if it meant your kidneys are shot?," said Sharp

[spakool]

Paying to learn how to be HAPPY? If your sole motivation in life is money than life will be forever unhappy, because you can always want more money,IMHO... Money can dissappear so fast, I try desperately not to base my life on money because I know from my own weird experiences how having and losing money can make for a very hard life. Money and Happiness will never be the answer even if it means comparing somebody not as well off as you are, it just really does mean anything....all said in my humbke opinion type way...

[daemon.azazel]

yeah it's a mc donalds for happyness
"one big McHappy with fries and ketchup" :ROFL

[fishdude123]

Couldn't agree more. I try to avoid making decisions that will lessen my happiness even if it does result inmore $. Sometimes it isn't so easy!