A HAPPY LIFE CAN’T be built solely on relaxing, having fun and doing exciting things. To be sure, there’s pleasure to be found in all of these. But I have come to believe that, to lead a life that’s full and satisfying, there is an ingredient that is even more crucial: We need to devote our days to activities that we think are important.
Or, to frame it slightly differently, we want our life to count for something.

“MONEY IS AN opportunity for happiness, but it is an opportunity that people routinely squander because the things they think will make them happy often don’t,” write Elizabeth Dunn, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson in an article in the Journal of Consumer Psychology that appeared April 2011—and which, needless to say, I only just got around to reading. It’s arguably the best academic article on money and happiness for the general public,

“TAKEN ALL TOGETHER, how would you say things were these days? Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” We now have the latest answers to this question, thanks to the release last month of results from the 2014 General Social Survey.
In 2014, 32.5% of Americans said they were very happy, versus a 42-year average of 33.3%. Meanwhile, 27% said they were satisfied with their financial situation,