Have you ever wondered if it would be possible to store up some of the happiness we have now to utilize later? In this mini-series, we discuss building a happiness 401(k), and what actions we can take today to improve our happiness decades down the road.
Transcript:
Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day, through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your prio...
Have you ever wondered if it would be possible to store up some of the happiness we have now to utilize later? In this mini-series, we discuss building a happiness 401(k), and what actions we can take today to improve our happiness decades down the road.
Transcript:
Welcome to Everyday Happiness where we create lasting happiness, in about 2 minutes a day, through my signature method of Intentional Margins® (creating harmony between your to-dos and your priorities), happiness science, and musings about life.
I'm your host Katie Jefcoat, and while Tax Day is still a month away, one of my new year’s goals was to get on my taxes early, so I won’t be scrambling come April. As I was sifting through receipts and 1099 forms, it got me thinking about Arthur Brooks’, the Atlantic contributing editor and professor at Harvard, theory on a Happiness 401k.
For our younger listeners, a 401(k) is a long-term retirement plan offered by employers to help individuals slowly build a robust savings portfolio they can utilize when they stop working. While doing that with money is all well and good, wouldn’t it be great if we could invest in our happiness, perhaps even tax the joy we experience now to use later? Brooks says we can, that there is a way to invest in your happiness when you are young to enjoy the fruits long into life.
I have mentioned this pivotal study before in my podcast, but I will take a quick minute to reiterate it here. In 1938, Harvard started a study following a group of men from youth to adulthood, asking every so often how they felt they were on their happiness scale, among other things, to understand their well-being. Each participant had all different walks of life, relationships, and life goals, so no two people were the same.
This long-term study, of course, evolved, and they greatly expanded the number of participants beyond the small group of men from Harvard. As results began to fill in over the decades, researchers categorized participants into a spectrum of happiness describing their happiness with life and their physical health. For example, one end of the scale would be “happy-well,” with the opposite being “sad-sick.”
It comes as no surprise that some factors of happiness were beyond participants’ control, such as generational wealth or DNA-based health conditions. However, what was within participants’ power is the most fascinating, and as Brooks says, “[this] can teach us a great deal about how to plan for late-life happy-wellness.”
Researchers discovered that seven specific buckets affect our happiness into our 70-80s that we can start to fill now. Those seven categories are: smoking, drinking alcohol, body weight, exercise, emotional resilience, education (i.e., lifelong learning), and relationships. Tune in tomorrow to discover the first half of the 401k buckets!
And in case you missed it, we are pivoting this podcast to a bi-monthly email at the end of the month. I invite you to join happy mail, the happiest email in your inbox, just jump over to www.katiejefcoat.com/email and subscribe.
Let’s connect on social at @everydayhappinesswithkatie and join the community on the hashtags #IntentionalMargins and #everydayhappinesswithkatie on Instagram
Links: https://onamission.bio/everydayhappiness/
