Wealth and Happiness

This is an extract from Daniel Kahneman's work on the relationship between wealth and happiness

"The belief that high income is associated with happiness is mostly illusory. People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities."

Tal Ben Shahar says in Happiness, "Ironically people seem more depressed once they attain material prosperity than they did when striving for it. The rat racer is sustained by hope that his actions will yield some future benefit, which makes the nagative emotions more bearable. Once he reaches his destination and realises that material prosperity did not make him happy, there is nothing to sustain him. Paradoxically, "making it" makes them less happy, because earlier they were sustained by the belief that once they got there they would be happy."

"When we get more wealthy, we resume our expectations upwards and so we aspire for ever more lofty and expensive pleasures - a treadmill that never ends, even for billionnaires. The rich may experience more pleasure than the poor, but they also need more pleasure to be equally satisfied.

Kaneman's research suggests one way to escape from this hedonic treadmill - a life rich in rewarding relationships.

Hope makes the placebo work

Hope is a emotion where the mind travels into the future in time and creates joy in the present moment in anticipation of that future. It not just creates a positive mood, it also influences our action in the present. It can create motivation to pursue the goals.
Tal Ben Shahar says in his book Happier, “Our focus is not so much on attaining goals as in having them.” The purpose of having a future goal, the attainment of which is meaningful to us, enhances our happiness in the present and increases our level of well-being every step of the way.
Having hope is to imagine a positive outcome. Most of the things we do are unconsciously processed. Thus if we visualise the positive outcome and believe it will happen, we can putting into place
We need hope to bounce back after disappointment. Even if the present is unpleasant, the thought of a positive future can be stress-buffering and can reduce the impact of negative events or disappointment. Hope allows you to tap into your adaptability and resourcefulness and reassures you that you will get through the tough time.

Two chair work

I have experienced two chair work in therapy and found it a powerful, effective and creative intervention for bringing about change. In Transactional Analysis, in redecision work, the client sits on one chair and has a confrontation with the parental figure from whom he or she took a limiting message. Using chairs and imagery, the client is brought back to a scene that connects to the original injunction and acceptance decision. The client now confronts the parent or parental figures and tells them that he or she will no longer accept the injunction and that he/her will now live his/ her own life, in defiance of the figure, if necessary.
The client is encouraged to express what he or she wants to the parental figure. The therapist plays an active role in the process, almost like a director, asking the client to express how he/she feels and asks for what he/she wants clearly. The client then physically moves to the other chair and responds as that parental figure. This physical movement is very significant. It allows the person to literally move into the world of the other. It allows for greater emotional arousal (cognitive shifts are more likely to take place if there are higher levels of affect). The dialogue between the Child Ego state of the client and parent continues till the client feels that he has let go of the original maladaptive decision and announced his or her voluntary adoption of a new decision, a healthier perspective on life.
Resolution can happen
1. As the client expresses the feeling which may have been repressed. Just the expression is sufficient to let go and open up options
2. As the client responds as his/her parent. Often resolution happens as the parent expresses he/her own helplessness or need. The client may begin to empathise with the other and yet claim his /her rights by saying, “you may want me to be more successful out of your concern for me, but I am going to celebrate my success and I am successful enough.”
If the resolution does not happen, then the therapist can step in with a process called the parent interview. In this the therapist then has a dialogue with the parental figure. If the client continues to be a victim, the therapist may also challenge the client by saying, “OK, tell your parent that you will continue to sulk and feel sorry for yourself all your life.” The client of course does not say this, but it makes them aware of their victim stance and encourages them to make the shift.

One would be a fool not to get angry - Aristotle

Anger is one of our most primitive defense mechanisms that protects and motivates us from being dominated or manipulated by others. It gives us the added strength, courage, and motivation needed to combat injustice done against us or to others that we love.
When there is oppression, anger is a gift. It is a fuel given by nature in order to facilitate action. It is the thing that increases the possibility of revolt, when “reason” tells us it would be safer to be a nice puppy. It was important for women in the 1970s (when the feminist movement happened) to realize that they were angry and to accept the feeling as a good thing.
The psychologist Paul Ekman has famously demonstrated that there are certain facial expressions which are universally understood by all people regardless of their culture. They include anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise, and maybe also contempt. These are emotions and expressions of emotion that are "hard wired" in our brains.

The external signs of anger, which are so visible not just by accident, signals to others that we mean business. This deters them from various actions they would otherwise find worth pursuing. Your opponent may back off.
Not all anger leads to violence. You can do some very positive things with negative feelings. Anger can lead to dialogue and powerful conversations resulting in change as well. It can teach us a thing or two about how to have
healthier, happier relationships.