The Cost of Happiness

a minute ago i was blogging about work life balance..

i walked off awhile getting myself a drink, and something sparked my head.

what is the cost of happiness?

what is happiness?




what is the costs in all ways? not just in material sense but many others opportunity costs.

couldn't figure a solid answer now and so i read a few articles.

here's an interesting briton survey on the cost of happiness.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=421202&in_page_id=2


interesting enough i found out that what usually defines a person's happiness is derived from few main sources. they are about relationships (family or loved ones, and friends, peers and colleagues), meaning one derives from his or her work (job satisfaction and community service), material wealth (aka ability to pay off his necessary bills and earn decently above average to live a comfortable life), spiritual beliefs and understanding of his life purpose, ability to make a positive impact in others lives and etc.

in some ways it can also be explained by Maslow's Hierachy of Needs. physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem and self actualization. supposingly people gets happy when they get these needs. and for the wants, i believe people don't necessarily need material wealth in order to be happy. it is because they can't obtain their needs that is why they pursue material wealth trying to replace the fundamental needs they require. for example, without real love or company, you might need more artificial materials to draw your attention to in order to pass time without drawing yourself into sadness or loneliness. at the end of the day, people still need people. that's what humans need. we need touch and a sense of belonging just like any other living creatures.

so, back to the main question.

what is the costs of happiness?

is it definable in monetary sense? isn't it too shallow if you were to define them in monetary sense?

i would say that the cost is the cost of being able to tell what is your priority and then on arrange the rest of the less important things around it and still satisfying the basic needs and requirements of those supporting functions while you are capable of making sure that the priority is well taken cared of. because that priority is what essentially contributes to your true happiness and only you can tell why it is. of course you do have to weigh the costs of not spending enough time and effort to manage the supporting functions because they are what keeps your focus away from your main priority in life and yet fundamentally necessary for you live. for instance, working to earn your paychecks, paying your debts and taxes to earn your fair share of public services, continually learning to earn your value in the society so as to deserve a competitive paycheck, communicate in order to stay on touch with the happenings so that you know what is required of you to serve back the world so that you deserve to be respected and serviced in return. everything has got to have a balance.

the reason money comes into picture is because it has the ability to allocate the best people to the best jobs. and so you may not have to do something required of you to do in order to get your fair share of life if you either cannot do them effectively and efficiently or you simply don't value doing the job. for instance, you still need to clean your houses and the world in order to live decently. but you don't like to do cleaning and you don't value the job more than filing or data entry. so you earn your fair share of your responsibility by using the money you earned from filing and paying the cleaner to help you do your share of the service.

and as more and more responsibilities and issues come into the picture, people start to forget the main purposes of their activities and eventually got misdirected to believe that money is what makes them happy.

okay back to the main question again, what is the costs of happiness?

self management. work life management. people management. well perhaps management doesn't sound like a cost to you but think again. management entails accountability, discipline, knowledge, time and priority management, management abilities and responsibility takings etc. and since most of these items can seem mundane or distasteful to people who only seek fun and entertainment, they so thus appear as costs and the opposites of happiness to some who does not see the value or purposes of doing them.

therefore the ultimate costs of happiness is the cost of losing focus on what matters to you most in life while you are juggling with the many aspects you got to manage in life and thus losing a sense of appreciation of what you do, then on losing the appreciation from people, the time to feel, touch and share lives, and eventually losing the patience and emotional capacity to be happy and positive about what life is actually offering and giving you.

what am i writing here?

haha i'm tired now.. need a break to refresh my mind..

hehe hopefully i'm not taxing your brain the way i taxed my own..

=P

to be continued...


hey, check out these 2 sites i found after my blog.

interesting ways to be happy and successful.

20 Ways to Get and Stay Happy polled by Time.com
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1631176,00.html


Andrew Matthew's 144 Strategies for Success and Happiness
http://www.successandhappiness.net