With Purpose Success, part 27

Bigger Is Better. The late U.S. senator Everett Dirksen once noted that "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." It wasn't his intent to glorify the more-is-better model of success. But that is the lesson you might walk away with after reading those words, and it is precisely the kind of thinking that dominates free societies in the world today. Yet, as we've seen with the recent collapse of numerous financial markets, this model is seriously flawed.
Consider this puzzle: in surveys, the impoverished people of Calcutta, India, living in crude shacks and with little access to clean water, register about even with Americans on the happiness scale-and well ahead of the Chinese, South Koreans, and Japanese. Meanwhile, relatively poor
Puerto Ricans and Colombians, according to surveys, appear to be among the happiest people on the globe. It may well be, as Edith Wharton said, that "if only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time."
How else can we explain the life satisfaction of people of such modest means? Cultural differences explain some of this conundrum. Asians, for example, seem to value understatement and are least likely to show off or express contentment, while Americans appear to expect so much that they are easily disappointed.
But underlying these thought-provoking results is the simple fact that more is not necessarily better when it comes to enjoying life and feeling satisfied. More may be more, but it is never enough. We're caught up in the myth that by achieving and going up the ladder and having more stuff we'll feel full inside. Yet it isn't so. Certainly, money can make a difference for people who have none. Studies by Ruut Veenhoven, a sociologist at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, show that the extremely poor-those earning less than $10,000 a year-may be rendered unhappy by the relentless stress of poverty. Yet his work shows that after a poor person's income exceeds that level there is no further correlation between money and happiness. After a certain level of income, typically enough to meet basic expenses, money ceases to be a factor. I'm not saying we should all live in tents under the freeway or go back to a natural life and give away all material possessions. It's great to work hard, achieve material success, and feel good about it. But that is not how you reach the Promised Land.
The Success Mirage. Another popular notion of success is that you've hit your mark when you measure up to other people's ideals. Again, this notion is firmly planted in our psyche but represents a hollow version of happiness, one that is certain to disappoint in the end.
You may have parents or grandparents who grew up in the shadow of the Depression. Life was terribly hard then. People owned relatively few things. They were frugal. They didn't splurge. The name of the game was just getting by, and to a large extent success was measured from the outside in. What few nice things you did own you might display, and those became symbols of achievement. There wasn't a lot of self-reflection during this period. The feeling was that if you could afford a car, a house, or some jewelry you deserved it. There was a sense of pride and accomplishment that came from showing these things to others.