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Two points jumped out at me: 1)
> Contrary to what most of us might predict, those earning over $100K are no happier than those with incomes of less than $25K And 2)
> ... happiness and sense of purpose are both at their highest among people working between 21 and 30 hours a week, and misery increases in tandem with the number of hours worked thereafter. The results are consistent across genders. I can't say I agree with the first. I've gone from quite poor to upper middle class. Money does not make one more happy per se, but your ability to reduce stressors is much higher (and that can tip the balance to being more happy). Food running out? Unexpected bills/repairs? Water heater broke? Several years ago, that would mean I have cold water for the next few months (true story, our on-demand water heater required manual lighting from outdoors for about 7 years - couldn't afford a new one. Wind, rain, snow, day, night, go outside to light the pilot). With more income, that means I go out that evening and pick up a water heater (which I did when I could afford it!). My ability to now remove nearly all debts has made me feel so much better than I have for _years_. This only happened because I was firmly on the higher end of the middle class. For the second part, I agree fully. All I want to do is work my property and spend time with my kids. I do want to work too, but I want that to take up much, much less of my time. If I could do 21 hours of work a week and maintain a similar ability to fix a water heater at the drop of a hat (or car issue, or whatever), that would be an easy sell. As for happiness, you choose to be happy. And that is an easier choice when stressors are less present. |
In my experience, jobs that pay upwards of 100k require significant time/energy investments. I make good money, but I have to be mentally engaged all day long. I also have to deal with situations that come up nights/weekends/holidays. My average work week is about 50 hours of time I'd call "billable" plus another 20 hours of time spent on keeping current with my field.
I would GLADLY trade half of my salary to work half the hours, but that's not very easy to do: companies want employees on standard hours, and I still have to keep up with what's changing in my field to be relevant and continue pulling in the salary I have.
So I think there's a sweet spot where a job is good enough to avoid the financial stressors like missing payments or not being able to replace necessities, but not so demanding that the stress of the job itself approaches the same level.
On the extremes: Stress from finances (low income), stress from very taxing job (high income). I agree with you that I'd prefer the job stress, but not by all that much. They both make me anxious, worried, drained.