I think the opposite. Everyone thinks they're optimizing for happiness. It's nearly impossible to target because there are far, far too many unknowns. But nobody just aims to have a ton of money for no reason. They do it because they want money. Why? They think they'll be happier when they have it.
Some have a whole-life plan, and some are just living day-to-day, but everyone trying to earn "more money" is aiming to be happier.
There are some who aim for happiness only in the short term, too. People call them lazy, or good-for-nothing a lot of the time. They're not trying to make others happy, just themselves. And so far as they can tell, it's working because if they knuckled down and worked hard, they could earn more money... But they'd definitely be less happy in the short term.
There are even some who optimize for other people's happiness. It brings them happiness, too, of course, but probably not as much as it brings others. That's called charity, selflessness, or altruism.
But everyone optimizes for happiness. They just don't always get it.
I’m an Australian who spent a few years in the Bay Area at a startup. It’s pretty clear to me that the idea that your life will be better when you’re successful / rich is a cultural belief. You don’t look for proof for things everyone in your community believes.
I currently live in Melbourne. My bubble’s equivalent myth is around being creative. If you don’t make art or get involved in hobbies, why not? What’s gone wrong that makes you so boring? None of my friends here obsess about money, or work harder than they need to at their day jobs. When we socialise we talk about comedy shows we’ve seen and things like that.
There’s hundreds of examples of these cultural beliefs once you start looking. Eg, gender roles, when it’s appropriate to lie, the expected stages of relationships, the importance of money, etc etc. The best way to notice this stuff in ourselves is by travelling. Spending serious time in other countries is good for the soul.
In Melbourne, with some of the highest property and rent price / income in the world? My friends there are firmly stuck in the rat race. Melbourne has become money obsessed too, not as bad as SF/SV, but sadly getting that way due to the insane housing costs and creeping American individualism.
But it’s weirdly even more classist - you either have parents to help you out with a home loan, or you don’t, and if not you don’t get to care about being creative (long term) because you can’t afford it.
I think it really depends on your social group. I met a lot of my friends here from doing improv classes and things like that. I'm sure if I worked a 9-5 job and made friends there my social network would be quite different.
After living in SF and Sydney, Melbourne still feels crazy cheap to me. And property prices are set to drop another 15% over the next 18 months[1].
I guess? But that’s not really a very good comparison? It’s apples and oranges, unless
your friend ground in SF was similarly majorly from improv (or a similar creative endeavor). Like, if I moved anywhere and made most of my friends from a particular hobby they would be different from my current work friends. That doesn’t say much about the respective places.
I guess for me my anecdote is; I have a wide variety of friends in Melbourne (having grown up there) and every time I go back it feels like a very large % of every conversation turns to property. It’s become some kind of sick national obsession, and it’s a thin proxy for money obsession. Startup/sv talk is at least sometimes interesting in comparison
Yeah I hear you, and that’s why I framed it as a cultural belief (of your social bubbles) not a national belief.
I’m not friends with a random sample of people in Melbourne. And I bet you aren’t either. Your high school will be skewed based on the ethnicity & socioeconomic status of the area. And they’re all the same age. 36 year olds have different pub conversation topics than 18 year olds or 80 year olds.
People from Sydney (where I grew up) often ask what Melbourne is like. I honestly don’t know what the average person here is like. But I really like the specific people I’ve befriended.
At some point “why do all my friends talk about boring things” should become “why don’t I have more interesting friends?”. And I don’t think Melbourne (or SF) has any shortage of interesting people no matter what you’re interested in. But you do have to put effort in to look.
Making friends as an adult is harder than it was in high school. If you haven’t made that effort in Melbourne, I don’t think to entirely blame Melbourne for your boring friend group.
I totally agree that noones friends are a random sample. Definitely not mine, and I haven’t lived there for awhile now so they are static, and probably even less representative.
I guess I read your initial post as some generalization like “sf folk are so money obsessed I moved to Melbourne and they’re all about the arts”. Which i obviously disagree with, but I think now isn’t what you were trying to say so, sorry for that!
That’s interesting, I recently started listening to a podcast about this subject which started in 2019. Didn’t know there had been contradictory results released since then.
The implications of the differences in methodologies is pretty interesting itself.
I used to think this until I made a career change that moved me from the top 10% earners to the top 1%. I am much, much happier, on a daily and multi year basis. Less stress, less worry, more optimistic.
n=1. The science has been done on this and as far as I know, the results have been pretty consistent and have held up so far.(edit: turns out that's incorrect--there have been contradictory results released in the last couple years)
My household is in higher single digit top percentage range and I'm not even sure whether or not I think moving to the top percent would make me happier.
In the name of science I will be talking with my boss on Monday.
Some have a whole-life plan, and some are just living day-to-day, but everyone trying to earn "more money" is aiming to be happier.
There are some who aim for happiness only in the short term, too. People call them lazy, or good-for-nothing a lot of the time. They're not trying to make others happy, just themselves. And so far as they can tell, it's working because if they knuckled down and worked hard, they could earn more money... But they'd definitely be less happy in the short term.
There are even some who optimize for other people's happiness. It brings them happiness, too, of course, but probably not as much as it brings others. That's called charity, selflessness, or altruism.
But everyone optimizes for happiness. They just don't always get it.