I’d like to take all the credit, but ……

We would all like to be happy, right? And there is no shortage of advice on the internet about how to get there, often by buying someone’s book or online course. The trouble is, does any of that advice actually work? Is there anything behind the claims?

After selling our business last year, I had a “void” that I imagine many experience in their early phase of retirement. I was keen to work again, and sent out lots of applications. None of them were succeeding. I worked in a role for about a month ……. and despised it! Whilst I had more time on my hands and was feeling a little lost, I thought it would be a good time look for evidence-based ways to feel better.

Long story short, I completed a really interesting and completely free course by Dr. Laurie Santos.

Dr. Santos is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University, which is a pretty good start for my “evidence based” criteria. She created a course called “Psychology and the Good Life” which became Yale’s most popular course and had nearly 1 in 4 Yale students enrolled. I completed the on-line version of that course, and found it really interesting. It leads you through all the things that we think we will make us happy but don’t – better grades, more money, a better job. Then, more importantly, it provides a long list of techniques that are shown empirically to work. It guides you through these techniques, and at the conclusion steers you towards making your favoured practice a daily habit.

My choice was simple – writing a daily entry in a gratitude journal. Each day I take time to right a paragraph or so about three things that I am grateful for. These can be large, globally important things, or small things like a pleasant personal interaction. I find it to be a wonderful habit that keeps me feeling realistically optimistic about the world and my life in it.

Yeah, but how does this relate to Humble Dollar, you might ask? Well, some of my entries are about the fortunate financial situation that our family finds itself in. And importantly, how that financial good fortune has a material impact on our lives in terms of security, flexibility and reduced stress.

This all got me thinking about the three things that I am most thankful for when it comes to our financial journey thus far. After some contemplation, my top three:

1. We won the genetic lottery. We were born in Australia during a prosperous time for our country. We received free schooling up to the end of high school, then low-cost university education. We lived with very good, low cost healthcare and a stable political climate. None of this was our doing, we were just incredibly lucky.

2. We have parents that passed on financial habits that have served us well. We generally value saving over spending, but not to the extreme of a miserable, frugal existence. None of this was spelled out to us in a handbook, we were just fortunate to have parents that taught by example.

3. We have not suffered any large, traumatic events in our life. Like everyone, we have lost loved ones, had our hardships and had to grit our teeth to get through. But we haven’t had major illness that affected our earning potential. We haven’t had divorce, or bankruptcy or myriad other curveballs that can really throw you off course.

All of this leaves me with two feelings – huge gratitude for our good fortune, and enormous admiration for those that have not have our favourable luck but still managed to carve out a happy, healthy life.