So, our next guest is here with a holiday survival guide. Joining us right now is Harvard professor Arthur Brooks. He hosts Office Hours, that podcast. It's new and it's awesome. Also, of course, a columnist with The Atlantic. But what we want to talk about this morning...
...is money and happiness. The very idea of can you buy happiness, right? And how we should all feel right now when everyone talks about affordability, right? And how unaffordable things are. Is that supposed to, does that make you unhappy? I would imagine it does. How do you think about this?
So, when we're talking about affordability and inflation, it's not about happiness. It really is about unhappiness. The government can't bring you happiness. It can't. What it can do is eliminate sources of unhappiness, and it can bring you a lot of unhappiness. The number one source of unhappiness that governments typically bring to citizens is not actually maintaining a stable price level, because it chips away at the purchasing power of people and they hate it. It's a tax. It's a tyranny. It's bad policy and everybody knows it. So when politicians say it's not that bad, it just enrages people and quite justifiably so. That's job number one. If you look at the top three reasons why people didn't vote for Kamala Harris, which was really about Joe Biden, it was number one inflation. Number two was immigration. Number three was social policy or social issues. So that's the thing to keep in mind.
Okay. So how are they doing then on that front?
The problem is that it's kind of stuck, and it doesn't actually do good for anybody to say that it's not a problem. The government means it's hard policy because, you know, I was trained as an economist and I know it's a hard problem. But when it looks like you're actually not paying attention to it, that creates rage and that's a big problem politically. But for people who are not really troubled by that, people who are above that basic level of just eliminating unhappiness, a lot of people watching this show, that is actually a pretty interesting science as well because it turns out we know how to buy happiness and almost everybody's doing it wrong.
Okay, tell me. I want to know. That's the secret. What do we say? If you have some money...
...yeah, if you got a modicum of money, you can, because there's five things that you can do. Mother nature wants you to do one thing and your impulses tell you to do the one thing that won't buy happiness, which is getting stuff. So people get a little bit above, you know, the poverty line, they start to make a little bit more money, they get a second watch, whatever it is, a nicer car, etc., etc. And then you get into this hedonic adaptation where it's like more, more, more, more.
Keeping up with the Joneses.
Even stuff won't do it. Stuff won't do it. We all know that the new car smell fades. You know, we adapt. That's what we do to stuff. But there's four other things that you can do and they all buy happiness. Okay? Number one is buying experiences with people you love. So that's why a vacation with people you love. That's why if you're going to get a beach house, it's not for the house. You buy the beach house as an attraction, as a magnet for the people that you love to spend time with them. That's why an expensive vacation to Disney, for example, is really, really great and meaningful and wonderful if you're with the people that you love and you're making memories. That's number one.
Number two is buying time. And buying time means paying other people to do things so that you have more free time, to cut your yard, to clean your house, whatever it happens to be. But you got to spend your time doing something personally edifying or with people that you love. Scrolling social media doesn't count. Watching TV doesn't count. Don't waste the time that you're buying. Be super purposive about it. That will buy happiness.
Okay. But by the way, there are some people I know that actually love to garden.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So, you need to spend your time because that's actually very productive leisure. If you're doing something that creates value that you love, you should absolutely do that.
Some people who do gardening do it by themselves.
Yes. No. That's edifying. That's like praying for them. That's a meditative activity you could do. Any activity, for sure.
I waited for number three. I'm assuming one of these is going to be to give away.
Yeah. Yeah. That's number three. Number three is giving your money away, but you have to give it to things that you love. A lot of people who are very rich, they don't like philanthropy because they don't have very much interest in the things that they're expected to give money to. You live in Omaha and you have to join the board of the Omaha something hospital because that's what you have to do to be a member of functioning society in Omaha.
Because all the things you're talking about are things that I think Warren Buffett figured out.
Yeah, that's right. Well, he actually...
...a modest life doesn't... and he gave his money to Bill Gates.
