In the News (Stanford Business): “A Global Look at the Connections Between Happiness, Income, and Meaning”

“Wealthy people may be happier. But a new study finds that money can’t buy a sense of purpose.

“‘Humans think happiness is this one thing: You’re either happy or you’re not,’ Jennifer Aaker says. Of course, it’s not so simple: New research conducted by Aaker and her colleagues not only challenges the assumption that happiness is binary but also finds that the relationship between happiness and our sense of meaning can change depending on our financial situation.

“‘This is particularly interesting because research has shown when people get wealthier, they experience greater happiness,’ explains Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business who has extensively studied happiness, meaning, and money. ‘But this research suggests that the nature of happiness also shifts based on income.’

“In a forthcoming study…, Aaker and her coauthors find that meaning is a stronger predictor of happiness for people with low incomes than those with greater financial resources. In other words, people with more money may be happier, but people with less money view happiness as tied to a sense of meaning — the belief that their life has purpose, value, and direction.”

Comment: Money appears to buy a person and extinguish the search for the meaning of life. 

My Response: It clogs him.

Question: So we quite possibly will fall for money despite the fact that we have found a high meaning of life?

Answer: Money starts to twist you: Do this, do that, and just like that you’re gone.

Comment: Explain to us the system, the mechanism of this. I have found the meaning of life and I am happy that I have found meaning in life. Then abruptly such a force appears, which is called money, business, politics, and suddenly…

My Response: It’s the ability to create with the help of politics, money, power, or whatever. And you start participating in it and it swallows you up. Nothing can be done.

Question: Even in our case, there are a lot of questions here. Guys come and they seem to be completely immersed, but politics or business suddenly appear and it takes them away. We saw them burning with desire for the goal, but alas!

Why is this done from above? After all, the Creator directed humans to search for the meaning of life, and then found the meaning of life. Why is the Creator taking a person away?

Answer: He takes them away in order for a person to realize, once again by going through one’s desires, sufferings, goals, and opportunities to once again make a choice.

Question: Which means, a person has to make a round once again and it is unknown whether he or she will return in this life or in another one? Is this done intentionally by the Creator?

Answer: Of course, yes. Well, what will you do? It will be better next time.

Question: And what is cleaned up at the same time? What does this person have to clean up during this period?

Answer: The determination to find meaning and not sell this meaning for dollars, for a position, or for something like that.

Question: A person can be retained by saying, “Well, what are you doing?! Is it possible to change the meaning of life for this?!”

Answer: It depends on his current condition. But in fact, no, not seriously.

Question: Even based on your experience, do you think something could buy you when you came to your teacher hot and burning?

Answer: Nothing.

Question: Is this determined by all the previous sufferings that you went through?

Answer: This is the point in the heart that requires only one thing—the meaning of life. And it can’t accept the meaning as being in some government structure, in wealth, in a house in Hawaii or something else.

None of it is a draw. But this is because a person is created this way and not because he is so great, big, or special. So it’s just luck.

Comment: Your answer regarding an opportunity to create was unexpected. So with money, business, a person has a thought: “Now I will create.”

My Response: Yes, this is about creativity! But of course! If I can travel the world, buy, and sell. I’m not interested in wealth; I’m interested in the process.

Question: And what about politicians?

Answer: The politician even more so.

Question: Let’s say that in our case you see to a smaller extent that you can really create? Or not?

Answer: In our case, everything is combined together because we are spreading the method of correcting the world. And it turns out that without this, the world will definitely not be able to see where it will roll. So we are preparing a methodology for the proper development for it.

Question: So this should be approached as a real and high form of creativity?

Answer: Yes, real and the highest creativity when you are just preparing a methodology for the world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/7/22

Related Material:
There Is Money But There Is No Happiness
Money Cannot Buy Happiness
How Does One Sell Happiness?

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