19 Jul Want to Be Happier? Science Says Buying a Little Time Leads to Significantly Greater Life Satisfaction
via Inc by Jeff Haden
In 1930, the influential economist John Maynard Keynes assessed how technological and economic advances had reduced the number of hours the average person worked. He predicted that within two generations, most people would work only three hours a day.
Working hard wouldn’t be a problem. Filling all that free time would, for most people, be the problem.
While Keynes got a lot of things right, he swung and missed on that one. Technological advances have not freed up the average person’s time. Neither have broader economic advances.
Nor has increased wealth. In fact, some studies show that the more money people make, the less time they think they have.
Add it all up, and money can’t buy you happiness.
Unless, purposefully and consciously, you use a little money to buy a little time.ADVERTISING
In a 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers surveyed thousands of people who sometimes paid other people to perform tasks they didn’t enjoy or didn’t want to do. Like mowing the lawn. Or cleaning the house. Or running errands. Stuff they needed to do, but didn’t particularly want to do.
Unsurprisingly, people who were willing to spend a little money to buy a little time were happier and felt greater overall life satisfaction than those who did not.
Correlation isn’t always causation, though. Maybe the people who spend money to buy time are happier simply because they have the money to buy time?
Nope. While relatively wealthy people who spent money to buy a little time were happier than relatively wealthy people who did not, people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who spent money to buy a little time were happier than those at the bottom end of the economic spectrum who did not.
No matter how much you make, no matter how wealthy you are, buying a little time makes you happier. (With a couple of catches; more on that in a moment.)
… keep reading the full & original article HERE