happiness Archives - CLIPPING CHAINS https://clippingchains.com/tag/happiness/ Funding the Adventurous Life Sat, 04 May 2024 18:33:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://i0.wp.com/clippingchains.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cropped-TEST_CC_Logo-1.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 happiness Archives - CLIPPING CHAINS https://clippingchains.com/tag/happiness/ 32 32 150809980 What Two Writers Taught Me About How to Think https://clippingchains.com/2024/05/06/what-two-writers-taught-me-about-how-to-think/ https://clippingchains.com/2024/05/06/what-two-writers-taught-me-about-how-to-think/#respond Mon, 06 May 2024 06:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=10035 In 1949, a college junior named Barbara Beattie wrote a letter for a school journalism assignment. We can only speculate on Beattie’s youthful expectations: Was she so naive to expect a response, or were these different times? She’d written playwright Arthur Miller at a time when the Broadway run of his most famous work, The …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2024/05/06/what-two-writers-taught-me-about-how-to-think/feed/ 0 10035 Four Years of Financial Independence: The Slow Growth https://clippingchains.com/2024/02/28/four-years-of-financial-independence/ https://clippingchains.com/2024/02/28/four-years-of-financial-independence/#comments Wed, 28 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9942 For four years I’ve watched something slowly bloom. In my old life, the “before time” you might call it, I moved from task to task. If I wasn’t working, I unknowingly made a practice of turning recreational or hobbyist pursuits into something that, from an outsider’s perspective, looked an awful lot like work. Goals and …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2024/02/28/four-years-of-financial-independence/feed/ 8 9942 Mini Episode: Is the Best Life Lived at Home? https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/16/is-the-best-life-lived-at-home/ https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/16/is-the-best-life-lived-at-home/#comments Mon, 16 Oct 2023 06:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9678 Years ago, we decided to one day try living abroad for at least a year. We always loved traveling and also always felt that we never had enough time to truly experience a place beyond the superficial. I wanted to stay for a while, learn the language, and slowly morph into a new life mode. …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/16/is-the-best-life-lived-at-home/feed/ 4 9678 The Problem with Bucket Lists and How to Be Happy with Less https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/02/the-problem-with-bucket-lists/ https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/02/the-problem-with-bucket-lists/#comments Mon, 02 Oct 2023 06:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9646 It’s often said that happiness equals what you have minus (or sometimes divided by) what you want. When our wants are many, what we have is of little consequence. That is why there are hordes of unhappy millionaires and high achievers who quietly suffer (yes, suffer) under the weight of lofty and insatiable desires and …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2023/10/02/the-problem-with-bucket-lists/feed/ 4 9646 The Blue Dot Effect: Pessimism in a Beautiful World https://clippingchains.com/2023/05/08/blue-dot-effect/ https://clippingchains.com/2023/05/08/blue-dot-effect/#comments Mon, 08 May 2023 06:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9441 As I’ve recently mused, financial independence won’t solve life’s problems. We will never “arrive.” We will never achieve perfection. An impactful 2018 study, nicknamed the Blue Dot Effect (a stand-in for the more lumbering “prevalence-induced concept change” title), helps us to understand the mind’s tendency toward finding problems, even where none exist. The results have …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2023/05/08/blue-dot-effect/feed/ 2 9441 Five Lessons from Three Years of Financial Independence https://clippingchains.com/2023/02/27/three-years-of-financial-independence/ https://clippingchains.com/2023/02/27/three-years-of-financial-independence/#comments Mon, 27 Feb 2023 07:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9242 One evening, circa 2011, I sat over dinner with my future wife in our small and sweaty Houston, TX rented bungalow. I was and still am an occasional cheap bastard, so the air conditioning was almost certainly set to engage on an “as-needed” basis, far from anything resembling comfort. The concept of financial independence wasn’t …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2023/02/27/three-years-of-financial-independence/feed/ 4 9242 The Anticipation Of The Thing Is Greater Than The Thing https://clippingchains.com/2022/11/07/impact-bias/ https://clippingchains.com/2022/11/07/impact-bias/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2022 07:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=9055 We are prone to believing that outcomes will have stronger emotional impacts on us than they often do. This state of expectation, or impact bias, highlights why anticipation of an event is a much more palpable emotion than the event itself. The impact bias can lead to behaviors that make us less content despite our …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2022/11/07/impact-bias/feed/ 1 9055 Seven Lessons From Two Years of Financial Freedom https://clippingchains.com/2022/01/24/two-years-of-financial-freedom/ https://clippingchains.com/2022/01/24/two-years-of-financial-freedom/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2022 07:00:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=8207 It’s been almost exactly two years since I last worked for anyone else. Two years since I made a paycheck. Two years since I commuted. Two years since I waited too long, ran like a fool with a backpack smacking me in the ass, missing my bus home anyway. Two years since I rushed to …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2022/01/24/two-years-of-financial-freedom/feed/ 20 8207 The Happiness Curve: Beware of Expectations https://clippingchains.com/2021/07/19/the-happiness-curve-beware-of-expectations/ https://clippingchains.com/2021/07/19/the-happiness-curve-beware-of-expectations/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:33:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=7450 The grass is always greener on the other side. No truer words were ever uttered. Get it? Utter? Cows? Grass? Anyway, it’s our expectations that lead us in search of new experiences, but do they always pay off? This concept of something better on the horizon has governed my existence for as long as I …

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]]> https://clippingchains.com/2021/07/19/the-happiness-curve-beware-of-expectations/feed/ 6 7450 The New Research on Income and Happiness https://clippingchains.com/2021/06/21/the-new-research-on-income-and-happiness/ https://clippingchains.com/2021/06/21/the-new-research-on-income-and-happiness/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2021 13:31:00 +0000 https://clippingchains.com/?p=7308 We’ve all heard the phrase “money doesn’t buy happiness.” However, new research suggests a strong correlation between income and well-being, with no apparent ceiling. How can we interpret these results and reconcile what we’ve always been told about money and happiness? A Point of Diminishing Returns on Happiness and Income? A number of studies suggest …

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