Be grateful for the rain! Though it brings the mud that bring
forth the Realtors’ anathemas, it also brings our green hills and
feeds our cattle, sheep and other things that go bump in the
night.
Today I am totally filled with joy which started me thinking
about the things in life which bring happiness and contentment.
Be grateful for the rain! Though it brings the mud that bring forth the Realtors’ anathemas, it also brings our green hills and feeds our cattle, sheep and other things that go bump in the night.
Today I am totally filled with joy which started me thinking about the things in life which bring happiness and contentment.
As a Realtor, I see lots of people who truly believe a bigger house in a “better” neighborhood will afford them an increase in their enjoyment of life. Do you think that’s true?
Economists Luis Rayo and Gary Becker wrote an interesting paper on which choices make you happy, and have devised a mathematical model to illustrate it.
The full document can be found at www.chicagogsb.edu/research/workshops/theoryoforg/archive/PDF/HappinessWTO.pdf. But whoa, doggies! It’s a slog to read!
Quoting from their abstract, “We model happiness as a measurement tool used to rank alternative actions. The quality of the measurement is enhanced by a happiness function that adapts to the available opportunities, a property favored by evolution.”
Using a marriage of psychology, biology, neuroscience and evolution, they believe they can predict which choices bring people happiness. Of course they don’t call it happiness, they call it hedonic utility, which is the total number of hedons of pleasure the act would cause minus the total number of dolors of pain the act would cause. (You knew, of course, that hedons were units of pleasure and dolors were units of pain, just as I did. Yes, ahem.)
Luis Rayo was asked how this relates to choosing a house to maximize our happiness. Rayo suggests choosing a house with enough space to meet the needs of an accommodating, practical, relaxing lifestyle.
When asked if a bigger home makes one happier, he said to check motivation. If the goal is to impress others, he claims you’ll only be stressed out. He believes if your kitchen is a great place to hang and chill, it is irrelevant if it’s granite or if it’s ancient Formica unless you have a strong pull towards aesthetics. Possessions are “not a sustainable source of happiness,” Rayo opines. “When consumption extends beyond your needs and the goal is to impress others, you should be suspicious; it will not lead to happiness.”
Quoting again from the abstract, “The optimal function is based on a time-varying reference point -or performance benchmark- that is updated in a statistically optimal way. Habits and peer comparisons arise as special cases of this process. This also results in a volatile level of happiness that continuously reverts to its long-term mean. Throughout, we draw a parallel with a problem of optimal incentives, which allows us to apply statistical insights from agency theory to the study of happiness.”
Putting that in simpler terms, new possession becomes the “norm” in no time at all. Imagine a decision to purchase a new home. Initially the buyer thinks in terms of ‘a bigger house.’ Then the buyer is shown many ‘bigger’ houses, and suddenly there are choices regarding price, location, floor plan, lot size, etc. These become the new reference points.
So the buyer makes a choice, gets a home and moves in. This new house then becomes the basis for all comparisons…square one, if you will. And a new understanding dawns. A bigger house means a bigger mortgage that leaves less money for other things. And it means more cleaning, if you believe in housework that I personally do not. I don’t mind kicking the dust pachyderms out of the way to get to the front door as long as I don’t need a vacuum cleaner in my hand. (I’m just kidding. Sort of.) Of course, there is also the fact that more furniture is required for the additional area. While it’s easy to become accustomed to a positive change and move on, you never get used to activities that are painful and irritating, like housework.
And then you notice that your neighbor has a pool and outdoor kitchen …
According to Rayo, this unending cycle of serial interests and constant impulses to compare what we have now with what we might have is hard-wired into our brains. Eons ago we were hunter-gatherers. To remain safe from predators, our eyes began to gauge moving objects and colors by comparing them to the background landscape. Because we needed enough food and water for everyone, our brains developed the ability to continually look ahead and move on to new food sources. In today’s world, however, this survival strategy does not really serve us well. Brain scans and hormone fluctuations show we are indeed very sensitive to material success and know who has more or less than we do.
But as we get more, we see the others with even more. It makes us want more! MORE! MORE!
Do you remember in 1968 when Laurence J. Peter introduced ‘The Peter Principle’? The Peter Principle is a colloquial principle of hierarchology, stated thus: “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” We go through our careers looking for the next promotion in anticipation of personal growth. But at some point, some people are promoted to the job one step beyond their greatest ability. However, you almost never hear of people going to the boss and saying, “Um, I think I was better as an area manager. I feel over my head as the regional manager. It’s one step too much for my level of comfort and competence.”
Couldn’t the same concept be applied to the purchase of a new home? How many people are sitting in houses that stretch them too thin financially, are beyond their ability to maintain, and are not happy at all?
Is there scientific proof that a modest lifestyle is the path to happiness? Rayo said one example is Buddhist monks. They eat the same food and wear the same clothes everyday. With years of meditation they lose their interest in the “next new thing and the moving target. And their brain scans show that they are happier than most people in a scientifically measurable way.”
In the February 2007 issue of the Stanford Magazine, economist Benjamin Ho points out, “Remarkably, the Rayo-Becker economic view of happiness is compatible with a mathematical take on Buddhism, where happiness equals possessions divided by desire.” Ho mused, “If I change my wants to something more easily attainable, then the brain no longer needs to use stress to motivate.”
It is interesting to note that in a paper entitled “Articulating a Positive Relationship to Money” presented February 12, 2007 at the Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens Conference, Stephanie M. Bryant, Dan Stone and Ben Weir offer the idea the concept that an economic utility function provides a useful starting point and model for considering the relationship among money, goals, and well-being. However most economists assume a one or two-parameter utility model. The first parameter is a positive, marginally decreasing, preference for money. The second is a negative preference for (or aversion to) effort. Therefore the commonly implemented economic utility function is materialist and does not account for the possibility that acquiring or valuing money may decrease happiness. I guess it’s just not the American way.
Take note! True happiness begins with gratitude for what we have now. Whether your home is rented, or tiny, or huge, or lovely or a fixer-upper (like mine), be grateful for it and find joy in it.
Also remember psychology literature and surveys indicate not all happiness in life is geared to such endlessly moving targets studied by economists. Nonmaterial targets do not move. Social network, family and friends bring permanent happiness. Relationships, not things, bring long-term satisfaction. Deep down we all know that, but sometimes it’s difficult to remember when the kids are fighting, your spouse has left underwear in the bathroom again, and your sister needs to borrow money!
But once again I urge you to be grateful – for the rain, for your home, for you loved ones, and, naturally, for your Realtor!
Be kind to your Realtor.
