Earned Success Makes People Happier
I tell this to the kids I speak to at the high school -- not in so many words -- but about how satisfying it was to go from a point where I had terrible jobs and slept on a door propped up on two milk crates because I couldn't afford a bed...to the point where I was earning a living.
(I haven't spoken there recently because the teacher who brought me in changed jobs, but we're hoping to do a big speaking event in the latter part of this year with a bunch of different speakers I bring in, some of whom went to college and some of whom did not.)
On a related note, there's an op-ed by Arthur Brooks in the WSJ noting how lottery winners tend to end up miserable, but how people who earn their success tend to be happier:
The University of Chicago's General Social Survey reveals that people are twice as likely to feel "very happy" about their lives if they feel "very successful" or "completely successful" at work, rather than "somewhat successful." The differences persist whether they earn more or less income.Entrepreneurs of all types rate their well-being higher than do members of all other professional groups in America, according to years of polling by the Gallup organization. And it's not because of the money. The employment website CareerBuilder.com reported in 2011 that small business owners made 19% less per year than government managers.
While earned success facilitates the pursuit of happiness, unearned transfers generally impede it. According to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, going on the welfare rolls increases by 16% the likelihood of a person saying he or she has felt inconsolably sad over the past month (even after controlling for poverty and unemployment). A study by economist John Ifcher at Santa Clara University shows that single mothers who were required by the 1990s welfare reform to work for their benefits--and therefore lost leisure time, had to find child care and the like--were still significantly happier about their lives after the reforms than before.
All this data relates to our policy debates because every year, fewer and fewer people earn their way in America without a government subsidy. As my colleague Nicholas Eberstadt has written, entitlements have doubled as a percentage of the ballooning federal budget since 1960. Today, more than half of American households receive government transfer benefits.
And this isn't just a case of senior citizens taking the Social Security they have paid for. Unearned transfers are exploding. Consider that the number of Americans receiving disability benefits has increased almost 20-fold since 1960, to 8.6 million today from 455,000. The Tax Foundation notes that nearly 70% of Americans now take more out of the tax system than they pay into it.
It is a simple fact that the United States is becoming an entitlement state. The problem with this is not just that it is bankrupting the country. It is that the entitlement state is impoverishing the lives of the growing millions dependent on unearned resources. The good news is that we have a golden opportunity to rein in entitlements, for the first time in many years.
We may have "a golden opportunity," but I think the likelihood it will be taken is right up there with my walking out and finding a purple unicorn eating my fern.
I haven't been an employee in 13 years. My life satisfaction is very very high - even during those years where I mismanage my businesses and my revenue is down drastically.
I've had years where I've been near poverty level, and I've been envied by a friend who has very remunerative work at a big firm. The phrase he keeps using over and over is "you're your own man".
I work late, sometimes, and I work weekends, sometimes.
I have, however, never been ORDERED to work over a weekend like my friend has. It's got to crush you a bit inside, to be ordered about like a second grader.
Hell, I don't even think that second graders should be ordered around by teachers like that.
TJIC at December 27, 2012 8:33 AM
Well, yeah, but I wouldn't mind winning the lottery, you know, just for the research aspect of it, yeah, that's it...
Flynne at December 27, 2012 8:40 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/12/earned-success.html#comment-3532297">comment from TJICI've had years where I've been near poverty level, and I've been envied by a friend who has very remunerative work at a big firm.
Things are tough for me now, but I cut back, and back, and then some, and I'm doing radio and things to improve myself (beats just whining)...and my traffic on my radio show increases and increases...it's really exciting. After I turn my book in (or maybe before, depending on whether I can get an agent out of a meeting in January), we'll see about pitching my show to someplace where it can earn me some money.
Anyway, I'm waking up at 5am every day, working seven days a week, and I just love what I do. It's really hard sometimes, like when a piece of writing or thinking isn't coming along, but I just persist and I get there. The cool thing is going to bed every night feeling like I can't wait to wake up at 5am today. (Confession: Slacked off today and woke up at 5:45 after setting the alarm for 6.) It really is amazing -- along with feeling there aren't enough hours in the day to work. Worked yesterday until almost 8pm (had moved on around dinner time to read and prep 100 pages out of book for radio show this week), and then only stopped because I thought my eyes were going to catch fire and fall out of my head.
Amy Alkon
at December 27, 2012 10:00 AM
Flynne, as Miss Parker said...
More quotes at the link when you click on her name, but many of them are quite sad.
Miss Alkon, when I see your comments popping up before 8:00 AM out here, I think, "Damn! That lady's at work early!"
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at December 27, 2012 10:16 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/12/earned-success.html#comment-3532312">comment from Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com)C'est moi. I only wish I could find a way to not need sleep or to get five more hours in every day.
Amy Alkon
at December 27, 2012 10:20 AM
> I'm doing radio and things to improve myself (beats just whining)...and my traffic on my radio show increases and increases...it's really exciting
I think you've put your finger on one reason that self-employed folks are happy: we often have our fingers in many pies.
The widget installer works an 8 hour shift installing widgets. Day in and day out, it's all widgets.
You, on the other hand, blog, do a radio show, write columns, work on a book, tweet links to your material, swap emails with people, etc.
You're actually being pretty focused; I'm a bit more scatter shot: work at my two brands, work on a novel (http://morlockpublishing.com/the-book), practice guitar, make some bowls at the lathe, etc.
In either case, though, we have a LOT more variety in our lives than the widget installer.
Karl Marx was certainly an evil petty horrible man who is indirectly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions and the wasted lives of many many more, but he does have one quote that I find interesting:
"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." -- Marx, German Ideology (1845)
I'm a hard line libertarian (anarcho-capitalist, actually - even harder core!), but as I get older I think that even though Marx had his "solutions" exactly backwards, he did identify some problems correctly. As you point out in a paleo-dietary context, we evolved to live one way, and we are living another way now. This can have some negative impacts. I think that the social aspects are as important (or more!) than the dietary aspects. I love almost everything about the modern capitalistic division-of-labor economy, but there are ways in which it is foreign to our natures, and Marx's theory of alienation has some insights.
TJIC at December 27, 2012 10:42 AM
There's also something to be said for having control over your own destiny. You, Amy, are happy with what you do because despite the hard work and difficult economic times, you see a direct connection between what you do and the success you achieve, however you define success. Lots of people work hard all their lives and never get anywhere. They're working to pay bills, and that's important, but they know someone else is reaping most of the benefits of their hard work. And the guy who makes widgets is bored out of his skull doing it.
MonicaP at December 27, 2012 1:02 PM
I've thought of being self-employed some times and doing the consultant route in the past. I'm a DB Administrator by resume/advertisement. The consultant route to me just isn't consistent enough income for me.
I do programming and system and network admin as well. My bosses over the years have tried to limit me to the job description. They either realize I'm valuable and let me run, within reason, or fire me. Those few bosses who have let me go have also found work elsewhere within 12-18 months. I'm not suggesting causation, but the correlation has been interesting.
I actually had a co-worker ask me tonight "Why don't you do programming? I've seen your T-SQL and you're good at it."
It's because as a DBA, I get to be in all the other tech stuff.
And as a side issue I think about 94% of the CxO's of the Fortune 500 could be diagnosed among the ADD/ADHD/Autism spectrum. I think there is a correlation between ADD/ADHD/Autism and intelligence.
Also I don't know if Romney would fit the ordinary diagnosis -- but it may be that he knows how to read an ADD report from his subordinates.
But I haven't stuck with reading and commenting to Amy, over the years, because she is a dumb shit.
This is all a just subjective comment.
Jim P. at December 27, 2012 8:12 PM
The Tax Foundation notes that nearly 70% of Americans now take more out of the tax system than they pay into it.
I'm one of the chumps in the 30% who is helping pull the wagon, while the other 70% rides in it, and I'm not proud of that at all. Since when did I become everyone's bitch? Clearly I've been doing things wrong.
Pirate Jo at December 28, 2012 11:49 AM
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