Financial freedom won't make you happy
But imagine: a life committed to making heaven here on earth.
Vicki Robin and I appeared on the Earn & Invest podcast last week on an episode called, “Should FIRE Come with a Warning Label?” It’s worth a listen. For those of you who prefer reading over listening (me!), here is a Google Doc with a slightly more articulate version of what I said.
After show notes part 1: the perils of happiness
Off by an inch, miss by a mile. When our inner compass is even slightly off, we end up in the wrong place. I believe Americans have a mistaken belief that they should always be happy, and if they aren’t, something is wrong. Happiness is an emotion, it comes and goes, like any experience, and as any Buddhist mindfulness teacher will tell you, you can’t try to hold onto mental states. You were meant to feel everything, not just the good things.
But, capitalism sells the idea you are only meant to feel the good things. By buying something or achieving something, you can avoid the bad feelings and keep the good feelings. And so often you can. But only for so long. Then you have to buy or achieve something else. And thus the problem of the hedonic treadmill; as we keep on pursuing happiness, our expectations for what we need to be happy rise. We acclimate to more and better all the time. Per capita personal income, indexed for inflation, has gone up four times higher since it was in 1958:
Do you think we are 4 times happier than we were 65 years ago?
No, our baseline for material and experiential wealth constantly rise, leaving us as happy as we were before. As we acclimate to positive states, we become less tolerant of negative ones. And successive generations are born into these higher expectations:
“The crucial importance of human expectations has far-reaching implications for understanding the history of happiness. If happiness depended only on objective conditions such as wealth, health and social relations, it would have been relatively easy to investigate its history. The finding that it depends on subjective expectations makes the task of historians far harder. We moderns have an arsenal of tranquilizers and painkillers at our disposal, but our expectations of ease and pleasure, and our intolerance of inconvenience and discomfort, have increased to such an extent that we may well suffer from pain more than our ancestors ever did.” Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens
We’re just running faster on the hedonic treadmill.
The reason why FIRE isn’t going to make you happy is as basic as Buddha’s First Noble Truth: dukkha. Dukkha is the observation that being human means a general unease and dissatisfaction in life. Reaching financial independence is not going to solve for the First Noble Truth. (ha!) That’s just clever, seductive marketing.
A culture of needing to be happy and comfortable at all times creates a selling opportunity to temporarily alleviate that uneasiness through purchasing. If you become OK with occasionally being anxious, sad, or lonely, you’ll be able to opt out of consumerism more easily. But even if you realize that, you’re not immune. FIRE doesn’t excuse you from the hedonic treadmill, it was just another thing you’ve achieved. Yes FIRE going to make you happy (stages 1-3)! But only for so long. Then it simply becomes just another step on the hedonic treadmill.
Unless you know what FIRE is actually for.
We try to cling to pleasure, but all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But if I am willing to kiss the joy as it flies, I say, ‘Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won’t grab it. I’ll let it go.’ — Eknath Easwaran
After show notes part 2: crafting an empty life
Krista Tippett, host of the On Being podcast, wrote about her early experiences as an international journalist, which eventually set her on her spiritual path:
“This realization unsettled my sense of personal progress and education: it was possible to have freedom and plenty in the West and craft an empty life; it was possible to “have nothing” in the East and create a life of intimacy and dignity and beauty.” — Krista Tippett
It’s so easy to craft an empty life here in the West because we’ve been conditioned to that life is supposed to be about our own pleasure. But as president Richard Nixon once observed:
The unhappiest people of the world are those in the international watering places like the South Coast of France, and Newport, and Palm Springs, and Palm Beach. Going to parties every night. Playing golf every afternoon. Drinking too much. Talking too much. Thinking too little. Retired. No purpose. So while there are those that would totally disagree with this and say “Gee, if I could just be a millionaire! That would be the most wonderful thing.” If I could just not have to work every day, if I could just be out fishing or hunting or playing golf or traveling, that would be the most wonderful life in the world—they don’t know life. Because what makes life mean something is purpose. A goal. The battle, the struggle—even if you don’t win it.
An empty outer life is only a manifestation of an empty inner life. Sister Joan Chittister, says that “life is a series of experiences, all of them important, all of them here to be plumbed and squeezed and sucked dry, not for their own sake but so that we may come to know ourselves.” When we come to know ourselves, we become, as the Buddha said, not a god, a wizard, or even human but instead “awake.” For the benefit of us all. According to 16th-century Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, the idea of “enlightenment” was not some individual personal goal to escape mortal limitations and gain knowledge, but a group process by humans to assist the Divine in bringing creation into alignment with the original plan—i.e., "on earth as it is in heaven.”
As I said in the podcast, FIRE is not the goal, it’s a gate. The task of manifesting our inner life into something that serves us all is the chance we get on this earth. And not having to work for money is such an opportunity for this.
Maybe the goal of life isn’t to be “happy.” Off by an inch, miss by a mile. A life well lived isn’t about material, or even experiential wealth, as President Nixon’s South of France, Newport Beach, Palm Springs golf-playing friends found out. You’re just running faster on the hedonic treadmill. No, a life well-lived is a life of integrity and values, trying to love who we can, as much as we can. Dharma, the work of manifesting the whole of our inner lives into something that serves us all. That’s the chance we get on this earth. The ancient Greeks called it eudaimonia, the human flourishing that comes from arete (virtue, excellence) and living according to your highest self. And as any person who’s focused on arete will tell you, your life becomes no longer about yourself. That’s real happiness. That’s when you escape dukkha, and the cycle of samsara.
Imagine, a life committed to making heaven here on earth. That’s the promise of FIRE.
Because it’s been a while:
I've been on a quest to drastically reduce my expectations. I'm noticing that expectations come in all sort of weird ways and in tiny moments. They then lead to frustrations.
A few days ago, I realized I sometimes unconsciously expect my day to go a certain way. I'll try to be more intentional about my days and be okay if they go off-track. It's stupid to be grumpy just because someone came over to fix something and it postponed some of my work.
Thanks for the article!
Douglas, I really enjoyed your podcast episode with Doc G...you were a fine guest on his show as he talks often about money & meaning...who better than you to have on the show?
I have been listening to a deep dive on the Bible from an Eastern perspective, and boy, has it really hit me as to what our calling is today (as it was "then")...THANK YOU for what you stand for and bringing your gift you have to spread the Good News!