Here’s an interesting thought exercise for us working stiffs who budget and save for everyday life as we know it — if you suddenly had more money than you could spend in several lifetimes, what would you spend it on? I mean after you’ve bought all the houses, cars, yachts, clothes, shoes, etc., what would you do?
More importantly, how much stuff would you need to finally be happy?
A few years ago, a study showed that the optimum income for happiness was around $75,000 a year. After that, the happiness quotient tended to go down, even as the money — and stuff — tended to pile up.
Forget about having more money than you and your next six generations of heirs could spend. Ask yourself, how much would you need to make to just be happy?
Now, before you go on a rant about socialism and communism, where the masses are mostly all the same poor because the rich oligarchs have designed the system that way, that’s not what I’m proposing.
More than a few of us live paycheck to paycheck, underemployed, underinsured, and under enormous stress should something like an unexpected $400 bill come up. Savings are minuscule, retirement plans are a pipe dream, and a sudden illness or car breakdown can be catastrophic.
But if you had enough money in your savings, retirement fund, kids’ college fund, that you didn’t have to sweat the small stuff, what would that look like?
I contend that so much of the economic anxiety could just boil down to always having to struggle to stay afloat, and always having to worry about that unexpected riptide.
People used to talk about rainy day funds. But when you’re working low or minimum-wage jobs, and trying to decide how long you can go without heat during these unseasonably cold snaps so you can pay the rent and put food on the table, there are no funds, just far too many rainy days.
However, if you woke up tomorrow and you had enough money for everything you need, how would that change you?
Would you buy a newer car, or stick a little more in that rainy day fund? Would you go on vacation — nothing fancy, but something fun?
Would you go out to dinner more often, fix up the sagging porch, patch the roof, improve your living space?
Now, if you have enough money for everything you need, and suddenly your windfall gives you not too much, but just enough for what you want, what would you do?
In this capitalist society, we’re used to looking at all the beautiful people who have more stuff — more houses, cars, boats, shoes — and deciding that surely they must be happier than we are. If they’re not worrying about whether to heat or eat, they must be ecstatic.
I’ve been wondering, what would society look like if we all had what we needed? Would we be as greedy and selfish? If there was no need, because everyone’s needs were met, what could we concentrate on?
I’m not musing about being given everything our greedy hearts desire, although a universal basic income of say, an extra $1,000 a month (suggested by presidential candidate Andrew Yang) would help some people not have to choose between heating and eating.
If we didn’t have to struggle for survival, could we fulfill other hopes and dreams? Could we save the rainforests, combat climate change, find a cure for cancer and other diseases that ravage the planet?
If there was no permanent underclass, would we still want to have just a bit more than our neighbors? If no one was starving, no one was cold, no one was hurting, would we hate less, smile more?
Or are we programmed to compete with the Joneses, and would that eventually be our undoing?
Personally, I don’t know how not to worry about the proverbial rainy day. When you’re used to working, your everyday anxiety is that background fear that through illness, layoff, or retirement, that steady paycheck one day stops coming. As long as you’re “working steady,” your possibilities seem endless.
Let’s get real, 99 percent of us are not going leave this earth with our next six or eight generations already cared for. Too many of us remain anxious about our personal economy, stock market surges notwithstanding.
And even if your financial plan includes scratch tickets and big payoffs (the belief that winning the lottery is a when and not an if), chances are the proposed wealth tax won’t affect you, unless you’re one of the 600 or so people who have 99 percent of the wealth.
But if you had enough money to survive, even thrive, and not worry, what would your life look like? Could you be happy if you had as much as everyone else, or would you still want just a little bit more?
As we watch billionaires weep from wanting to hold onto more than they can use in six lifetimes, we should put aside our envy and take note of their angst. How much is enough to make us happy?
And would we recognize it if we finally got it?
