Happiness Formula

I fantasize about writing a book called The Happiness Formula. The idea would be to create a simple formula for troubleshooting your life and improving your happiness. On page one would be this top formula.

Happiness = health + money + social life + meaning

The rest of the book would be nested formulas that further explain each component of happiness. For example…

Health = sleep + diet + exercise

And then down another level…

Sleep = schedule + technique

And down another level until it starts getting practical…

Sleep Technique  = consistent bedtime and waking time + no reading or TV in bed + no booze or caffeine…

And so on.

To make the Happiness Formulas extra useful, the highest priorities would appear first (leftmost) in the formula. For example, in the top Happiness Formula (Happiness = health + money + social life + meaning), health is a higher priority than money, which is a higher priority than social life, etc.

I realize you’ll argue with my ranking of priorities and point out all the exceptions. For example, if you have no money, you can’t afford to be healthy. But the formula only shows priorities, not absolutes. Obviously you always need a source of money, but the priority list shows that you shouldn’t take a job with high pay that will significantly affect your health. It makes more sense to get healthy and then leverage your health to get the best job. (Healthy looking people land better jobs and are more highly paid. Their brains work better too, and they have more energy.)

I rank money higher than social life or meaning because once you have money, those other things are easier to get. For example, you won’t have much of a social life if you can’t afford to do anything. And you can’t make money if your health is a mess.

You might wonder how something like “money” can be broken down into a formula so easily that someone could just follow it to get more. I think it can be done.

Money = Income + investments

Investments = (See my 9-point investment plan below that has been endorsed by economists.)

Scott’s 9-Point Investment Plan

Do these steps in the order shown…
1. Make a will

2. Pay off your credit cards

3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support

4. Fund your 401k to the maximum

5. Fund your IRA to the maximum

6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it

7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account

8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement

9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio

Part of the reason I don’t turn The Happiness Formula into a book is that it would only be about 20 pages long. Its power is in its brevity, and brevity is not rewarded in our economy. If the best book in the world was only 20 pages long, no one would buy it. They’d stand in Borders and read it cover to cover.

So I won’t be writing that book. Maybe it needs to be a wiki project.

Comments

[Rebecca]

So write the book already and fill in the chapters with lots of your illustrations!

[AJC @ 7million7years]

Neither you nor I made our financial marks on this world by following your 9 Step Plan ... if we did, we would still be aiming to retire on the equivalent of $15k salary today (try compunding inflation, as well as the returns and see what you get!) ...

... we did it by max'ing alternate income sources (then investing the proceeds wisely, right?)... we, each in our own way, 'owned' the 9-to-5 Dilberts of this world and used that to generate wealth.

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[J.A.]

Oh, there is one complication with it, & that's money, an ideal, I don't know, if I can see myself as any 'good' part
of, if you wanna do anything about it, you're welcome to receive any of my further & most adecuate information, pls., so that I can of course more easily than up till now explain & help you & e.g. myself realise, what it means & when to find 'It.' Greet's, [email protected].

[Zeeshan Saeed]

To achieve true happiness read the following :

http://www.lawofhappiness.blogspot.com/

[Judith is feeling pain and suffering...]

Happiness is emotion in which one experiences feelings ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense joy. This definition is, however, a synonymous one. A more clarified one is almost impossible to conceive due to the capacity by which a human can allocate the correct words into an appropriate and meritable sentence that would describe happiness.

[Life Happiness]

Very interesting formula, I add to this 2 additional points of views:
One economic point of view is Gross National Happiness(GNH). Which is outlined in the following policy white paper:

http://www.iim-edu.org/grossnationalhappiness/

According to Med Yones, the president of the institute, the individual level happiness is shaped by socioeconomic policies. This makes sense from a macro-analysis point of view.

Another micro-analysis or individual point of view suggests that happiness is relatively independent of the conditions we live in (it focuses on the internal forces of happiness). To prove that point of you, you can find a poor happy person and a depressed rich person. Th article asserts that happiness is the result of positive mental programming or the result of a learning habit of focusing on the positive aspects of one's life. The full article can be found at
http://www.lifehappiness.org/psychologyofhappiness/

[Luigi]

Hey, good job in all, but as I see it, this'll only work in the states(the economic part that is).I live in Europe and priorities are way diffrent. Not the same mind structure for NA and EU. So... Might wanna write it down somewhere at the top of the page. =)

Cheers from France.

[DaddyDix]

You should max out your 401k only to the level that your company matches. If they match dollar for dollar up to 6% of your annual salary... Elect a 6% contribution rate... Then you need to max out a Roth IRA. When that's covered - then go back to your 401k...

401k will give you stability in retirement, Roths will make you rich in your golden years.

Enjoyed the comments... Keep rockin

[DDT-RUS-4]

I thought that the WTO would be a good start for transforming the process of government at least across national borders. I quite like the idea of using the secretariat of the WTO as the centre for a Wikipedia of trade - a sort of open source world government at least for a very specific and complicated issue which needs many brains to provide a solution.

[DDT-RUS-4]

I thought that the WTO would be a good start for transforming the process of government at least across national borders. I quite like the idea of using the secretariat of the WTO as the centre for a Wikipedia of trade - a sort of open source world government at least for a very specific and complicated issue which needs many brains to provide a solution.

[law of attraction]

It's hard to achieve all together health + money + social life + meaning but i enjoyed your post. Thanks

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[tony]

Should be a great book. Would you have an online version where folks get their daily dose of joy?

For some folks though, through the course of finding their happiness & success, they might discover perhaps gaining money and wealth are not the top-most pre-requisite for them to feel happy.

Happiness & Success
http://www.SuccessArticle.info

[Online Marketing Mentor]

I'd but this even if was only 20 pages. Simplicity is more valuable than ever in this fast paced world.

[Wills]

I would like to see a 20 page e-book maybe, it could be used as a bonus to something, another cool idea would be like flash cards you could give as a gift set to someone.

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[Government Grants]

The success in procuring a Government Grant would well require meticulous detailing and planning which could well need the indispensable ‘Proposal’ which needs to be meticulously formulated and written with a incisive focus on the ‘Objective’ which needs to be clearly identified and formulated. This needs to be further enhanced by the presence of a Plan and a Budget generated within a financial temper for the Proposal to have an increased predilection for success in attaining a Government Grant!
http://govgrantsguide.com