This guest post from Joann is part of the “reader stories” feature here at Get Rich Slowly. Some reader stories contain general “how I did X” advice, and others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure.
I’ve been a Get Rich Slowly reader for about a year now, and I can honestly say I’ve picked up quite a bit of direction from you and your contributors. I wanted to share something with you that I feel like people keep missing. I’ve had some difficulties with a couple of people in my life, and I watched and analyzed a long time to try to figure out from where our problems stemmed. It was most definitely the “happiness” issue.
A little background
In 2008 I moved from the East Coast to Portland, Oregon. I’m single, no kids. I have two Master’s degrees and a shiny new BMW’s-worth of student loan debt. (I work in public service so I only have to pay 10 years on it and the remainder will be forgiven.) I have eight college years’ worth of credit-card debt (roughly a Kia), but it’ll get paid off.
My car is paid off and I live in a one-bedroom apartment outside of Portland. I don’t have a lot of extra money rolling around every month, but I certainly have everything I need and quite a bit of what I want.
I landed the exact job I wanted (with health insurance and a decent retirement system), and I get paid to drive around Oregon (in someone else’s car). I go to the coast and stand on the beach because I can. I play tennis because I wanted to learn how. I paint even though I have pretty much no artistic talent. I make sure to appreciate one thing about every single day. My life isn’t perfect, but I can honestly say that I am happy.
A different world
I’ve noticed two things since I’ve been here:
- One, the people are very different from those on the East Coast. My family is very close — I’m in touch with my parents, grandparents, and at least a couple of aunts/uncles and cousins every week, and I’m always in touch with my brother. This isn’t unusual among my friends “back home.” To my friends here, this is a relatively foreign concept; once you become a teenager, it seems, you call family on holidays and special occasions, and that’s about it. I don’t know if that affects happiness, but being part of a family community, even from so many miles away, definitely stabilizes me and enables me to be happy.
- The second thing I’ve noticed goes back to my friends and the problems we’ve had. The reality is, I’m happy so I really don’t care about much (if that makes sense). I don’t think I should be either out at bars or joining eHarmony because I’m approaching 30 and “should” be in a serious relationship, I don’t think it matters that I bought my coffee maker at Walmart and my coffee beans at Fred Meyer, I don’t care to wear name brand clothes, it doesn’t matter that I don’t live in Beaverton, I think (for me) that buying a house that I don’t want because of a tax rebate is stupid, and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone.
This last point has endlessly frustrated two of my friends (and me), and I think I’ve figured out why. It’s not necessarily that people are postponing happiness. It’s that they believe there’s a fixed approach to finding happiness. If they do A, B, and C in that order, as appropriate by age, gender, and profession, they will be happy because that’s how people get happy.
There’s no fixed path to happiness
One of my friends is a computer programmer; he approaches all problems with that engineer problem-solving approach. For lack of a better explanation, he can’t just roll with it, figuring out the things that make him happy along the way. For him, there has to be a systematic solution because certain inputs net certain outcomes.
The other friend I’ve had problems with is not an engineer, but she’s very based on this idea that taking the right steps in the right order — college, job, spouse, house — is what leads to happiness.
Along the way she decided, when I bought a couple of paintings by an artist that I am very much inspired by, that she too would be an “art collector” (of the same artist). I love to cook and try new recipes, or even just experiment with the stuff in my cupboards, so she became a new-recipe-experimenter (with her very expensive cookware). I wore a sundress, she wanted to be a “dress wearer.” (My favorite quote here is “They say imitation is the highest form of flattery… I just think it’s annoying” – Pink).
In the meantime, she nags at me that I should be doing eHarmony, I should be moving downtown to the Pearl, I should, I should, I should do all of these things that are not aiding in her happiness. It’s not unlike what my programmer friend says: I should buy different coffee because the internet says it’s better, I should live in a different apartment complex because it’s gated and more expensive — thus, better. And so on, endlessly.
To each her own
Very long story short, it’s not that my friends don’t want to be happy, or that they’re postponing being happy in favor of surviving. It’s that they don’t know how to be happy because it’s not something that can be taught and there’s no fixed set of steps to make it happen.
As a result they’re constantly “renewing” themselves and floundering trying to figure out why they feel something is missing. It has created resentment between my friends and me because I refuse to conform to their misery, and they aren’t capable of understanding that happiness is individual, not fixed. I don’t know if there’s a way to help them — and maybe that’s why people writing about finding happiness don’t really touch on it, since they’re banking on people buying into their steps and it would be counterproductive to say “go forth and be merry on your terms.”
Reminder: This is a story from one of your fellow readers. Please be nice. After nearly a decade of blogging, I have a thick skin, but it can be scary to put your story out in public for the first time. Remember that this guest author isn’t a professional writer, and is just learning about money like you are.
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I don’t have much to say that others haven’t said– I think you’re wise, Joann– but I will note in particular that I and people I’ve talked with agree with you about the closeness thing of East Coast families. It really does happen.
Just FYI– my wife and I met via one of the dating sites. We weren’t matched, and in fact we were both kind of turned off the whole shtick, but we both happened to go to the same site-sponsored Academy Award watching party. Independently, we each figured that we weren’t going to wait for the dating pot to boil, but in the meantime having a beer and watching the Oscars on a big screen TV was not too bad of an evening. And while making fun of Bjork’s swan dress together, we clicked.
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I’d like to add a little bit of counterpoint to this discussion.
While I certainly agree that it’s important to be happy, I think that it’s dangerously easy to take this to an unhealthy extreme. If we see a friend wasting their life abusing drugs, should we “back off,” because they claim that all they really want, all that makes them happy, is getting high? Isn’t he just “marching to the beat of his own drum?” Finding his own path? Doing what makes him happy? What’s the difference?
You’d say, “he’s not really happy.” But if you ask him, he says he is. Who are you to presume whether or not he’s happy? Isn’t that precisely what the author just critisized her friends for doing? Again: what’s the difference?
It seems to me that this “happiness at all costs” attitude risks setting an individual up for enormous disappointment later in life. This instant-gratification mentality breeds an attitude of entitlement and selfishness that will inevitably lead to misery. Scroll up – I just read countless comments from women who boast about getting the education they wanted, then quitting their job and having babies at age 25, despite warnings from loving relatives, because they believe that being a stay at home mom is what will make them happy. But how “happy” will they be 10 years from now, if their marriage breaks down? How “happy” are unemployed single moms who haven’t had any job experience in a decade? How “happy” will they be when that student loan debt is still dogging them years down the road? But “waiting” to have kids makes them unhappy. They want kids now. And we all know that Generations X and Y are far too important to have to wait to get what they want. They deserve things now. “Waiting” is for unhappy losers like their parents. 300,000 iPad users with Visa cards just proved my point.
I think there’s value in sucking it up and making some sacrifices to ensure long-term happiness, even if it results in a little occassional “unhappiness” in the short term. The notion that no one should ever have to endure any unhappiness is a fantasy. The idea that life advice that doesn’t match what we “want” is worthless is arrogant. I think there’s a lot to be learned from those who’ve walked our paths before us.
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@ #51. ExpatEngineer…can we get in touch? I’m a structural engineer and am feeling stuck right now. J.D., can you give ExpatEngineer my email address (if he/she says that’s ok)?
Sorry to post this here. But I’m REEEEALLLY struggling right now but am afraid to jump, so to speak.
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My coworker and I just talked about this! We both agreed that if everyone would just sit down and try to think of what actually makes them happy, they’d be surprised on how easy it would be to be content. Socializing, good books, my pets, good tv shows, and great movies make me happy. That actually doesn’t cost much at all (the library is an amazing place).
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Kevin (comment #102) – Right on target, Brother-Friend! I agree with you wholeheartedly. Our whole society is topsy-turvy due to several generations of people who believe they must have instant wealth, instant gratification, instant happiness, instant families – it’s ridiculous! The happiest people I’ve ever known were my grandparents, to whom nothing came instantly and who died with nothing to their names except a LOT of happy memories.
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Kevin #102 sounds like a frustrated, miserable man who’s been rejected by women. Whoa misogyny. Sounds like you have some introspectin’ to do.
#100 lil — awesome analysis. Right, how CAN you conclude like that?
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#106– I did not get that at ALL from 102′s post. I thought it was really thoughtful. It’s also an unfortunate truth– SAHM who get divorced are in really really bad shape compared to divorced working moms. That’s both in the data generally and true for divorced women I’ve met trying to get back into the labor force.
That doesn’t mean a person shouldn’t be a SAHM, but it is something a person should go into with their eyes open and a back-up plan. Same thing with getting an English PhD… can’t tell you how many I’ve met that are angry that nobody told them that the job market sucked after graduation. Long-term happiness is important to consider and learning from others’ experiences might help you not make a short-term decision that hurts you later on. It’s a totally valid point.
And not misogynistic or warranting personal attacks. Kevin sounds like someone who actually knows and has talked with women over the age of 30, not a “frustrated miserable man who’s been rejected by women.”
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Wow, does being judgemental make you happy? Or perhaps having an air of superiority? Way to declare your own choices as independent and freeing while pidgeon-holing the choices of others. To top it off you have the smugness conclude with a ‘be your own person’ message.
I’m wary of anyone who touts their personal happiness in the same manner that more materialistic folks tout their expensive ‘stuff’. It’s a thinly veiled version of ‘look what I have and you don’t, ha ha.’ Nothing in life, even ‘happiness’, is static. Now that you’ve proclaimed that you’re both a happy and independent person, perhaps you could make an attempt at being a compassionate and non-judgemental one too?
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MH – well said. The underlying smug tone in this article reeked of judgement to me. I have to wonder why she calls these people her “friends” if she obviously is only annoyed and exasperated by them.
But then again, it must be very lonely at the top.
And Kevin #102, you are, as usual, very insightful.
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This is a great insight. I believe this mindset is easily picked up in our educational systems with its rigid organization of students by age. This idea is one which pushed me to study homeschooling as an alternative means to teach my children how to be happy.
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This post made me examine my own life and my “shoulds.”
“As a result they’re constantly ‘renewing’ themselves and floundering trying to figure out why they feel something is missing.”
That statement struck a chord in me. I feel as if I’m one of those folks. I live in NYC, and I have everything I need, but I’m not happy. Somedays are better than others, but overall I’m not comfortable in my skin. Something is missing. As a result, I’m constantly on the lookout for something new. A grand solution. It doesn’t help that I feel as lot of pressure to conform…
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This post and the message about doing things in the “right” order reminds me of the untemplater blog started recently by several authors including Baker.
http://untemplater.com/manifesto/
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Rhonda 35 (@32): Thanks for your post! Great perspective!
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This is a great post. I think that it’s wonderful that you have figured out what makes you happy. Some people, no matter how great their lives are, will never be happy. I used to be one of them. I actually went to counselling for depression. The best thing the therapist said to me was “You have chosen to be unhappy and you can choose to be happy”. I had to change the way that I think and learn to love myself before I could be happy. I think it was brave of you to do this post. I hope you continue to live you life in ways that makes you happy.
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