Summary
In the article, the conclusion is that money does not always bring happiness. The premise is that People’s emotional well-being, or how they felt daily, didn’t improve as they made more than $75,000, but their life satisfaction, or how happy they were with their life overall, did.
In the case of video, the conclusion is that the fewer/lower expectations you have happier you are. The premise is that more options make our expectations higher and it makes us feel more pressure as well as more responsible for not making a perfect choice.
I believe that balance is very important in life because any side of extreme is almost always damaging for the person. At the end of the day, that is what both speakers are underlining. We think more and more money will make us happy but in fact, the article mentions “2010 study by Princeton researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that people tend to feel happier the more money they make, up until a point, which Kahneman and Deaton estimated to be about $75,000 a year per person.” The second speaker also talks about the similar issue, we want more and more options but it seems to give us “paralysis” rather than satisfaction. I do not think that there is happiness in having too much money or options or in fact anything. There is a limit to what we as humans can handle and we should respect that. Often greed gets in our way to see reality. In some cases, our cultural or economical background can also serve the same negative purpose. It is human nature to want more/better and if we do not put a limit to it our need for more becomes endless. This results in unhappiness and a lack of appreciation towards what we already have, therefore it leads to an unhappy life spent chasing something that does not even exist “perfection/full satisfaction”. I think it is very important to stop and take the time to change our way of thinking instead. It is our mind that drives us as humans and it is incredibly powerful, more we learn how to shape them in a positive appreciative way better for us.
