Money Or Happiness?

I was walking home from dinner with my wife, late on Saturday night (I now consider anything past 10PM to be "late"), ruminating on my lost youth. Gone is that enviable vitality, the immunity to hangovers and ability to eat rich foods and sugary snacks without consequence. However, I've traded those assets for something perhaps more valuable, wisdom (I can hear the collective groan of those already in subsequent decades of their lives!)

So what learnings and insight was this hard earned wisdom comprised of I hear you ask (perhaps with a hint of, warranted, scepticism). Well I've yet to reach a conclusion on the meaning of life and I'm certainly no closer to deciphering what I "want to do with my life" (something I was supposed to have decided during puberty, but I'll save that for another article), what I have determined however, I think is significantly more impactful.

Let's take a step back, dear reader (how presumptuous I know) and meander together through a short synopsis of the naivety of my youth, to where I now sit on my somewhat more amply cushioned, sagely aged posterior.

In my late teens I developed a severe distaste for academia, for a number of external and internal reasons, I became disillusioned with it's very purpose and rebelled against every sensible decision I could rebel against (I still brushed my teeth and looked both ways before crossing the road), as a result I arrived to my early twenties with neither the academics to pursue a particular career or the penchant to gain them. I did however soon discover the simple gratification loop of working hard for beer and rent money (what we call living pay cheque to pay cheque).

I toiled for 5 years in sweltering kitchens, washing pots and pans, mopping floors and chopping anything choppable, often working 15 hour days and in the summers often working 7 day weeks (sounds a bit like a Monty Python sketch doesn't it?). I took great pride in how hard I worked but when I met my now wife, then girlfriend, I became uncontent.? She worked in a comfortable office job, had been promoted several times and was earning a decent salary working 9-5, all while I was still being paid the minimum hourly wage. It suddenly dawned on me that I was miserable. I thought (naively), I'm smarter than half the people who's food I cook and they all probably work in cushy office jobs too, making 5 times what I make. I was livid.

Well here I was now in my mid 20's, no qualifications, triple cooked chip on shoulder, ready to right the wrongs of this great (self-inflicted)? social injustice.? You often hear people say they “fall in” to recruitment and in my case that was wholly accurate.? I knew absolutely nothing about tech (seriously I didn’t know the difference between hardware and software) but undeterred I embarked on my new career in (agency) tech recruitment.

?I was reasonably successful, not the most successful by any means, but competitive. Here I was in a career where one's value and status within the organisation was directly linked to how much money they generated.? To me this was a dream, having come from environments where I felt (rightly or quite possibly wrongly) I added the most value and yet was valued the least.

The money rolled in and was spent in due course. I bought some things I didn’t need (and now don’t use), started drinking more expensive beer, paying more in rent and swelled with a freshly minted sense of great import. As I embedded myself further into this lifestyle, I let it mould me. I worked in an environment where how much money you made for the business was always highly visible and how much money you made for the business defined your value. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that at work (not for everyone of course) but the problem for me was I brought that mentality home.? I was very open about how much I earned (without always being invited to be), particularly in relation to what I had been making.? As someone who considered themselves smart and capable, this was now the degree I never got, my validation to the world that I was capable.

It took one drunken night with old friends from my catering days to snap me out of it, I spent the night not so subtly dragging conversation to topics where I could brag about how much money I made, the things I had bought and could buy, all the while drinking heavily, far more heavily than any of my friends were (who themselves were rarely shy of a tipple!).?

I woke up mortified, from the few snippets I could remember I'd been an unconscionable arse. I text them in blind panic, offering a stumbling apology for my conduct. The reply I received wasn't one of derision, but sympathy and concern. Was I ok? I didn't seem happy.

Much like evolutionary success does not consider happiness, so did I not consider my own in my bid to be more successful, or that success could in fact be measured by happiness.? Looking back I realised that I had actually been happier in catering, poorer sure, but undeniably happier.

If you are still with me, I applaud you, the least you deserve is an explanation, or even an answer for the titular question, money or happiness?

Well it's a bit of a cop out, but both right? To be more concise, I think I adopt more of a Buddhist approach these days and strive to be content. Throughout the last decade I've struggled with anxiety and depression without ever really addressing it, I've chased money without purpose at the expense of my own happiness (or content-ness) and I've allowed myself to believe that personal value is somehow attached to financial status.

Now I'm a husband, I'm about to be a father and I'm in to my 30's (I know I'm still "young" comparatively) it feels as though I'm able to step back and see the things that matter. I've stopped drinking, stopped smoking and started counselling and proactively addressing my mental health.?

Of course the key lies in finding balance, I needed to increase my earnings to be able to afford my soon to be child a comfortable life, I needed to change my working hours to be able to spend more time with the people I loved.? But there’s a tipping point where the money, in my opinion, stops buying you meaningful things, and stops adding real value to your life.? I’m not sure if I entirely agree with the sentiment, money can’t buy you happiness.? Perhaps I would say, money alone can’t buy happiness or better yet, more money doesn’t = more happiness.

When I joined TravelPerk this year, my choice was made with this new found wisdom at the forefront of my mind.

During a candid conversation with my Director, I was asked "What do you want?"

My answer was not more money, a faster car or a bigger house, it was quite simply: "To be content."

By Alex Ludwick