Morgan Housel

Some of the studies showed yes, clearly it does.

Other studies showed no, it really doesn't.

And the academics, the economists were like battling for decades.

It's kind of been cleared up in just the last couple of years, this last couple of decades with some nuance, which is this.

If you are already an unhappy person, if you're already anxious, if you're already depressed, by and large, having more money will not help you at least that much.

It might help you a little bit around the margins.

If you start as an unhappy, depressed, anxious person, if you are already a happy, content, joyful, laughing person, having more money will give you a better life.

So in either direction, it's just leveraging who you already were.

it's not going to change you that much.

It's just going to leverage who you already were.

Very similar to like, they say this about power.

Like once you gain power in politics or something, it just leverages the personality that you already had.

Money is very much like that.

And so it's not a panacea in the sense of like, oh, like if you're miserable, like if you had more money, it's going to clear up your problems.

It can make some of your problems a little bit easier to deal with.

But I mean, think about it in these stark terms.

Let's say you are,

overweight and unhappy.

You hate your job and you're recently divorced and your kids won't talk to you, but you live in a mansion that has a Ferrari in the driveway and you got all kinds of fancy stuff.

Is that a good life?