Suze, Oh Suze
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Although I've never met her, Suze Orman scares the pants ($12.95 @ Costco) off me. In part that's because I'm always a little frightened of anyone who obviously feels better every single day of their lives than I will probably feel on my very best day, ever.
Like a lot of people, sometimes I feel like crap. And then I have my bad days. Occasionally I feel OK, and sometimes even pretty good. On rare occasions I actually feel really good or even great. But I've never achieved the kind of toe curling Orman-gasm that Suze seems to be experiencing every time I see her on TV.
Whenever I watch her PBS show and see her entranced in a 100,000 watt performance that would scare even the Energizer Bunny back into his hole, I think maybe Suze's right. Maybe I'd feel better if I had more money. Because like most personal finance pundits these days, that's ultimately what Suze is prescribing: How to be happy by having more money. Or maybe, more accurately: How to get more money, to buy more stuff (including more Prozac), to be happy.
You see, I appear to be among a small and shrinking minority of Americans who actually believe the old saying "money can't buy happiness." And while I, like most people I know (other than Suze), have my ups and downs, I don't think money really has much to do with it. Other than I believe you can waste a lot of time getting
money you really don't need in order to enjoy life. In this way, money - or the exercise of pursuing money - may actually ensure that you won't find happiness, because you'll never have the time. Pretty ironic, isn't it?
Money is a relative commodity. That is, what's a lot of money to someone is considered very little money by someone else. All most people - particularly Americans - know is that they want MORE of it. They never really stop to think about what ENOUGH would even look like. All they know is that they want more than they have now. More than their parents had, and certainly more than the guy next door has. More than they ever thought they'd have, and probably more than they'll ever need.
One of the smartest, most accomplished businessmen I know was recently telling me that he was thinking about retiring, but couldn't figure out how much money he needed in order to do so. It wasn't because he couldn't do the math; he's a brilliant financier and God knows retirement savings calculators can be found on every finance-related site on the web. Heck, Suze publishes a new book on the subject every six months! No, as I talked with him I realized that what he was really saying was that he could not decide at what point he, personally, was prepared to say he had "enough;" that it was OK to stop the exercise of amassing wealth, that it was OK to declare victory and retire with his spoils.
In his must-read book The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook tackles the question I think more Americans, particularly those in the middle and upper economic class, should be asking themselves: Why, at a time when we enjoy a higher standard of living than ever before, are more of us feeling less happy than in previous generations? Easterbrook's conclusion isn't necessarily that "less is more," but it's absolutely clear from the research he presents that "more is NOT more." When it comes to the relationship between money, "things," and happiness, there isn't one. At least not beyond a base level of financial resources, which is north of the official U.S. poverty level, but not by much.
And so when you look at the advice brokered by Suze Orman and so many other personal finance gurus these days, understand that it's probably terrifically solid advice about how to get more money, although that's admittedly not my primary area of expertise. But if you accept that money truly can't buy happiness, then you find yourself, as I have, asking the next question: So why should I spend so much of my life in pursuit of more money? Why can't I just cut to the quick? Why can't I just live on less, and use my time to enjoy life more?
posted by Jeff Yeager at 10:52 AM