Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)
Beloved Grand Eagle
Recently, I've been watching a series of videos about mind-body medicine. They are by Dr. Jason M. Satterfield, professor of behavioral medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. One of the topics in the most recent lecture, about income and happiness, was especially interesting to me. Satterfield stated that income and happiness are not related. Rather, he says happiness seems to be influenced mostly by relationships and meaning. But he also says that if a person has more financial security, he or she will be a lot happier. That sounds to me like the two are definitely related… money and happiness. I know from my own experience and that of family and friends and also many who post about their pains on TMSWiki.org that financial stress can and does cause TMS symptoms, everything from back and leg pain to fibromyalgia and migraine headaches. I’ll elaborate more on this in a little while.
Meanwhile, studies show that happiness is correlated with extraversion, spirituality, and religious communities. Quakers who have little in the way of money or possessions, and Mormons, many of whom are wealthy, reportedly are happier than most others in more traditional religious communities. Their happiness has been attributed to the social supports and relationships Quakers and Mormon communities provide.
Satterfield cites a study by Columbia University that the happiest place in the world are neither the richest nor the safest. Qatar, the richest country in the world, ranks as the 11th happiest, while the United States, which is the 6th wealthiest country, also ranks 11th. Japan, which has the longest life expectancy, ranks 44th, and Hong Kong, the city with the lowest murder rates, ranks 67th in happiness. The three happiest countries in the world are Denmark, Finland, and Norway. This may have something to do with Nordic culture, says Satterfield.
While income may not generally predict happiness, Satterfield admits that we need food, shelter, and clothing to feel secure, all basic necessities for happiness. But once people earn from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, income really does not matter in predicting happiness. Satterfield talks about the concept of hedonic adaptation, where making more money means buying items that cost more money such as bigger homes, new cars with more whistles and bells, and more expensive designer clothes, eating out in better restaurants, etc. Having more money and better possessions may not affect our happiness because we may always compare ourselves to those who have even more.
I grew up in Chicago during the worldwide 1930s Great Depression, the youngest of three children, my parents struggling to pay rent for apartments we lived in, and put food on the table and pay the utilities. Even our living room couch and dining room table and chairs were paid for by-the-month. When the electric bill wasn’t paid, the lights went out and we kids did our homework by candlelight. But I felt happy and never felt poor, because we lived in neighborhoods where everyone was in the same boat.
I grew up to have a best friend, Tom, who was from a wealthy Chicago family and could and did buy anything he wanted. He bought a Nikon camera one day for about $500 and when he looked at it outside the store, he accidentally dropped it and saw it break into a pie of pieces. It hardly phased him and he went back in the store and bought another.
He bought an expensive sports car, but by the time he got back home he decided he really liked another one in the show room better. He drove the new car back to the car dealer and traded it in to buy the other car. He had to take a loss because even in just the few minutes he drove the first car, it had lost value and was considered to be a used car. It didn’t matter to him. He was rich and could afford the loss.
But Tom, who later married his sweetheart who also was from a wealthy family, was the most unhappy person I ever knew. Something was wrong, and over the years of our friendship as we were like brothers, I came to learn why he was not happy. He had chronic back pain and blamed it on prep school football injuries. He was short and not built for the game, but wanted to prove he was macho. It began a lifelong battle with back pain in which he later had to crawl to the bathroom because it was too painful for him to stand up.
I now believe Tom’s back pain and constant depression was from TMS because of stressful family relationships. Satterfield supports this by pointing out that happiness is not determined by material things like money but by immeasurable things like our relationships with family and others. TMS pain can be caused by or fueled by financial stress, and low income does affect happiness, but what about the rich like Tom?
I learned over time that Tom’s father was so henpecked that to escape his wife he joined American Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers in the late 1930s before the United States entered World War II. He decided he’d rather fight the Japanese in Burma than stand up to his nagging wife. This left Tom without a father during his early formative years, and with a mother who smothered and dominated him. To prove to himself he was masculine, he played football and injured his back. So all the money that came to Tom could not bring him happiness. He spent his life repressing anger against his father for abandoning him, and his mother for dominating him in lieu of dominating his absent father. He needed to know that TMS repressed emotions could cure his aching back. But he didn’t know about TMS and back then, neither did I.
We don’t all have to be like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, living in poverty and caring for the poor in India, but in contrast to my friend Tom, she was a much, much happier person.
How much money is enough? Millionaires aspire to become billionaires, and they compare themselves with those as rich as they are. I recall a 1950s movie, “Key Largo,” in which a poor ex-GI Humphrey Bogart asks rich gangster Edward G. Robinson, “What do you want?” And Robinson replied, “More.” More seems to be what some people think will make them happy, but it often does not.
I read an interesting article about happiness and those who win millions of dollars in the lottery. The U.S. News and World Report article of December 19, 2013, by Rachel Pomerance Berl, says that big money has not brought happiness for many lottery winners because it changes relationships. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t play the lottery.
“Winning the lottery is often highly overrated and fraught with turmoil,” says Berl.
Michael Norton, associate professor business administration at Harvard Business School, agrees, saying “Among the troubles that come with lottery winnings is social estrangement. Newfound riches typically set the winner substantially apart from the demographics of his or her friends and family members. They, in turn, come calling for money.”
Friends and relatives see the lottery winner as someone to “put the touch on” for some cash because they have the idea the new money should be shared. But, as Norton says, “as a result, lottery winners may find themselves in the unhappy position of being ‘very, very rich, and much more alone.’”
You don’t even have to be a mega million-dollar lottery winner to find that you can lose family and friends. I read of a woman who “only” won one million dollars in a lottery and said she was sorry she ever won. It did not bring her happiness. What it brought were relatives and friends, even people she didn’t know, who “came out of the woodwork” with their hands out for some of her winnings.
Here is a link to that article:
http://health.usnews.com/health-new...lottery-winners-and-those-who-want-to-be-them
I recently read a quote by the late Princess Diana, who knew all about having money but not happiness: “They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?”
I don’t personally have a problem, or conflict, with money and happiness. I tell my darling dog Annie, a big black Lab mix, when I drive with her along Sheridan Road to the wealthy suburbs north of Chicago and we pass the millionaires’ mansions: “We are rich, Annie. We just don’t have any money.” Money cannot buy the love and happiness we have for each other.
A radio commentator, Wes Moss, recently discussed the traits and habits of people regarding money and happiness. “Can money buy happiness?” he asked. He said that though people will always argue one way or another on the subject, he collected research that has been backed by Georgia Tech’s Mathematics department that “actually answers” the question. He also reports on a quiz we can take on money and happiness. It’s at:
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/atlanta-...moss-would-you-pass-money-and-happiness-quiz/
It would be great if those reading about this topic of money and happiness would share their thoughts in the forum and give examples of their experiences on the subject.
Here are some links about happiness and income that I found interesting:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/04/18/secret-happiness-isnt-income-lot-stuff/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html?_r=0
http://us.reachout.com/facts/factsheet/what-is-happiness
Meanwhile, studies show that happiness is correlated with extraversion, spirituality, and religious communities. Quakers who have little in the way of money or possessions, and Mormons, many of whom are wealthy, reportedly are happier than most others in more traditional religious communities. Their happiness has been attributed to the social supports and relationships Quakers and Mormon communities provide.
Satterfield cites a study by Columbia University that the happiest place in the world are neither the richest nor the safest. Qatar, the richest country in the world, ranks as the 11th happiest, while the United States, which is the 6th wealthiest country, also ranks 11th. Japan, which has the longest life expectancy, ranks 44th, and Hong Kong, the city with the lowest murder rates, ranks 67th in happiness. The three happiest countries in the world are Denmark, Finland, and Norway. This may have something to do with Nordic culture, says Satterfield.
While income may not generally predict happiness, Satterfield admits that we need food, shelter, and clothing to feel secure, all basic necessities for happiness. But once people earn from $50,000 to $75,000 a year, income really does not matter in predicting happiness. Satterfield talks about the concept of hedonic adaptation, where making more money means buying items that cost more money such as bigger homes, new cars with more whistles and bells, and more expensive designer clothes, eating out in better restaurants, etc. Having more money and better possessions may not affect our happiness because we may always compare ourselves to those who have even more.
I grew up in Chicago during the worldwide 1930s Great Depression, the youngest of three children, my parents struggling to pay rent for apartments we lived in, and put food on the table and pay the utilities. Even our living room couch and dining room table and chairs were paid for by-the-month. When the electric bill wasn’t paid, the lights went out and we kids did our homework by candlelight. But I felt happy and never felt poor, because we lived in neighborhoods where everyone was in the same boat.
I grew up to have a best friend, Tom, who was from a wealthy Chicago family and could and did buy anything he wanted. He bought a Nikon camera one day for about $500 and when he looked at it outside the store, he accidentally dropped it and saw it break into a pie of pieces. It hardly phased him and he went back in the store and bought another.
He bought an expensive sports car, but by the time he got back home he decided he really liked another one in the show room better. He drove the new car back to the car dealer and traded it in to buy the other car. He had to take a loss because even in just the few minutes he drove the first car, it had lost value and was considered to be a used car. It didn’t matter to him. He was rich and could afford the loss.
But Tom, who later married his sweetheart who also was from a wealthy family, was the most unhappy person I ever knew. Something was wrong, and over the years of our friendship as we were like brothers, I came to learn why he was not happy. He had chronic back pain and blamed it on prep school football injuries. He was short and not built for the game, but wanted to prove he was macho. It began a lifelong battle with back pain in which he later had to crawl to the bathroom because it was too painful for him to stand up.
I now believe Tom’s back pain and constant depression was from TMS because of stressful family relationships. Satterfield supports this by pointing out that happiness is not determined by material things like money but by immeasurable things like our relationships with family and others. TMS pain can be caused by or fueled by financial stress, and low income does affect happiness, but what about the rich like Tom?
I learned over time that Tom’s father was so henpecked that to escape his wife he joined American Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers in the late 1930s before the United States entered World War II. He decided he’d rather fight the Japanese in Burma than stand up to his nagging wife. This left Tom without a father during his early formative years, and with a mother who smothered and dominated him. To prove to himself he was masculine, he played football and injured his back. So all the money that came to Tom could not bring him happiness. He spent his life repressing anger against his father for abandoning him, and his mother for dominating him in lieu of dominating his absent father. He needed to know that TMS repressed emotions could cure his aching back. But he didn’t know about TMS and back then, neither did I.
We don’t all have to be like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, living in poverty and caring for the poor in India, but in contrast to my friend Tom, she was a much, much happier person.
How much money is enough? Millionaires aspire to become billionaires, and they compare themselves with those as rich as they are. I recall a 1950s movie, “Key Largo,” in which a poor ex-GI Humphrey Bogart asks rich gangster Edward G. Robinson, “What do you want?” And Robinson replied, “More.” More seems to be what some people think will make them happy, but it often does not.
I read an interesting article about happiness and those who win millions of dollars in the lottery. The U.S. News and World Report article of December 19, 2013, by Rachel Pomerance Berl, says that big money has not brought happiness for many lottery winners because it changes relationships. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t play the lottery.
“Winning the lottery is often highly overrated and fraught with turmoil,” says Berl.
Michael Norton, associate professor business administration at Harvard Business School, agrees, saying “Among the troubles that come with lottery winnings is social estrangement. Newfound riches typically set the winner substantially apart from the demographics of his or her friends and family members. They, in turn, come calling for money.”
Friends and relatives see the lottery winner as someone to “put the touch on” for some cash because they have the idea the new money should be shared. But, as Norton says, “as a result, lottery winners may find themselves in the unhappy position of being ‘very, very rich, and much more alone.’”
You don’t even have to be a mega million-dollar lottery winner to find that you can lose family and friends. I read of a woman who “only” won one million dollars in a lottery and said she was sorry she ever won. It did not bring her happiness. What it brought were relatives and friends, even people she didn’t know, who “came out of the woodwork” with their hands out for some of her winnings.
Here is a link to that article:
http://health.usnews.com/health-new...lottery-winners-and-those-who-want-to-be-them
I recently read a quote by the late Princess Diana, who knew all about having money but not happiness: “They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?”
I don’t personally have a problem, or conflict, with money and happiness. I tell my darling dog Annie, a big black Lab mix, when I drive with her along Sheridan Road to the wealthy suburbs north of Chicago and we pass the millionaires’ mansions: “We are rich, Annie. We just don’t have any money.” Money cannot buy the love and happiness we have for each other.
A radio commentator, Wes Moss, recently discussed the traits and habits of people regarding money and happiness. “Can money buy happiness?” he asked. He said that though people will always argue one way or another on the subject, he collected research that has been backed by Georgia Tech’s Mathematics department that “actually answers” the question. He also reports on a quiz we can take on money and happiness. It’s at:
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/atlanta-...moss-would-you-pass-money-and-happiness-quiz/
It would be great if those reading about this topic of money and happiness would share their thoughts in the forum and give examples of their experiences on the subject.
Here are some links about happiness and income that I found interesting:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/04/18/secret-happiness-isnt-income-lot-stuff/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/a-formula-for-happiness.html?_r=0
http://us.reachout.com/facts/factsheet/what-is-happiness
