Good Life: What It Really Matters

The moment when luck overtook me came on a Friday evening in an inhospitable high-rise estate. I actually just wanted to pick up my daughter from a children's birthday party, but instead ended up in the host's kitchen with cheap champagne, a crying radiologist and new insights. And that's how it happened: The school my daughter goes to is between that high-rise estate and a well-to-do residential area, so the social spectrum of her circle of friends is accordingly.

When I was standing in the doorway with another mother to pick up the children, Helene Fischer thundered towards us from the living room, in which the father whirled his wife and children alternately across the floor. We stood, embarrassed, between piles of shoes in the tiny hallway and watched the spectacle. As all the dancers sank to the floor laughing, tears suddenly ran down the cheeks of the mother next to me. It was crazy, she sobbed at the kitchen table a little later, they had everything – money, great careers, the man on the board, she had her own practice, three children, a heated pool, and yet everything didn't feel good. And here, in this small apartment, there would be so much lightheartedness and warmth that unfortunately she now has to cry and urgently needs alcohol.

It turned out to be a long evening that kept me busy even longer. Because in many things that broke their way between champagne and tears, I could find myself. We don't have a villa or a pool, but when I look back ten years, my husband and I have achieved a lot – and bought a lot: a house, a car, designer lamps, a robotic lawnmower. We're definitely richer today – but are we happier too? Or was life perhaps even easier, more carefree?

Researchers have been studying the relationship between prosperity and satisfaction for decades. Up until the 1970s, people were firmly convinced of the formula "a lot helps a lot". In the post-war period, many had experienced a veritable explosion of prosperity, bought washing machines, refrigerators and televisions, which made life noticeably more pleasant. The supposedly logical conclusion: The accumulation of material goods leads directly to happiness. But at some point the doubts came. When the US economist Richard Easterlin published a long-term study in 1974 which showed that Americans whose incomes have risen significantly in the last 25 years are subjectively no better than before, he laid the foundation for a new science: today's Happiness research. As income rises, he explained, so do demands – a "hedonistic treadmill".

More money – more luck?

Around 40 years later, the psychologist Daniel Kahnemann and the US economist Angus Deaton then announced that they had found an upper limit for financial happiness. It is based on an annual income of around 65,000 euros. The feeling of happiness can increase up to this amount. However, once basic needs are met, more prosperity does not increase well-being.

"We probably already reached this state of saturation in Germany in the 1980s," explains economist Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Ruckriegel from the TH Nürnberg, who deals with interdisciplinary happiness research. According to studies, our standard of living only contributes ten percent to our sense of happiness. The fact that we still attach so much importance to prosperity is also due to our parents. They set an example for us and raised us accordingly. In addition, in order to advance as a crowd, the baby boomers had to live to work. It was realized far too late that this is not exactly ideal for health and satisfaction.

Because material values ​​are only a means to an end for satisfaction. The sociologist Jan Delhey from the University of Magdeburg has identified three factors that are involved in happiness: having, loving, being. Have because financial resources guarantee security. To love because we are social beings – and family, partnership, friends are our greatest asset. And being, because hardly anything is as satisfying as self-realization, in other words: a fulfilling, meaningful activity. This can be a job, a hobby or an honorary position – the latter is even particularly suitable for increasing happiness.

Keep everything in balance

"The art," says Karlheinz Ruckriegel, "consists in balancing the individual factors. If I earn a lot of money, I usually have to work a lot for it – there is less time for family, friends and hobbies." He wished, said the birthday child's father that evening, that he could ride the roller coaster and ghost train with the children until they felt dizzy. But that is not included in the salary of a bus driver and a geriatric nurse. She wished, the radiologist explained, that the family would do anything together again at all. But if her husband is not on a business trip, she is guaranteed to be at a congress.

"Our basic problem today is not the lack of material, but of time", confirms economist Ruckriegel. From an economic point of view, the search for happiness is reduced to a simple question: How do I use my input (time) to achieve the greatest possible output (happiness)? Because only then will you have a successful life at the end of the balance sheet.

Create and achieve intermediate goals

Nobody has expressed what it is better than the 95-year-old, who told the writer Jorge Luis Borges at the end of her life: "If I could live my life again, I would try to make more mistakes next time. I would not be so perfect anymore, but much more relaxed. (…) I would take more opportunities, climb more mountains, swim in more rivers. " Science confirms this wistful review. "Essentially, the feeling that our life has been a success depends on how we rate our experiences and achievements in it. If I can draw a positive balance, what we call life satisfaction arises," says Ruckriegel. It is therefore important to set realistic and meaningful goals. "You can be ambitious, but you have to be achievable, otherwise frustration threatens."

Is happiness in our genes?

And actually we also know that: The feeling of having achieved something is more satisfying in the long term than winning the lottery. Current events are massively overestimated anyway. A separation, a promotion, even an incurable illness – all of these affect our well-being, but mostly only for a short time. After a while, the state of mind levels off again at the old level. Because every person develops a certain level of happiness in the course of his life, which remains more or less stable.

Studies from twin research show that the individual About half of the experience of happiness is determined by our genes is. In the meantime, certain gene variants have even been found that tend to make people rather unhappy. "But that doesn't mean that we are completely at the mercy of biology," says Ruckriegel. I can influence whether I am at the upper or lower end of the happiness spectrum. Because: "Our feeling programs are about as old as the limbic system: 60 million years – so not completely up to date", says the scientist.

In terms of evolution, our brain has been trained to pay particular attention to bad news; we perceive far too little positive things. That may have made sense in the past, because the cheerful and reckless was more likely to be killed by the saber-toothed tiger than the suspicious. Today, of course, this extreme behavior no longer makes sense. There are different approaches so that we can see the world realistically. Ruckriegel's favorite method is a gratitude diary. "For two or three months, write down little keywords two or three times a week: What went well, what better than expected? What am I grateful for? Studies show that people perceive the world more positively afterwards."

I invited the radiologist, the geriatric nurse and the bus driver to a barbecue for next week, because you can never have enough friends, I now know. Unfortunately, the radiologist's husband canceled. He is on a business trip.

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