Does money make us happier? Here's what the research says

Money only makes you happier if you live below the poverty line and you can’t put food on your table and then you can afford to. Whether getting superrich actually affects different aspects of your well-being? There’s a lot of evidence it doesn’t affect your positive emotion too much.

There was a recent paper by Matt Killingsworth where he was trying to make the claim that happiness continues as you get to higher incomes. And yeah, he’s right, but if you plot it, it’s like if you change your income from $100,000 to $600,000 your happiness goes up from, like, a 64 out of 100 to a 65. For the amount of work you have to put in to sextuple your income, you could instead just write in a gratitude journal, you could sleep an extra hour.

Yale cognitive scientist Laurie Santos, quoted in the New York Times

Ten minutes

It’s better to spend an extremely high quality ten minutes growing, than it is to spend a mediocre hour running in place. -Angel Chernoff

A new 988 number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

A new 988 number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline goes into service on July 16. It will accept texts and live chat is available. Unfortunately, according to the Wall Street Journal, it relies on call centers that are already overstretched. Annual call volumes to the current 10-digit line increased by 92% from 2016 to 2021. Of more than nine million calls to the hotline from 2016 to 2021, 1.5 million were abandoned before they were answered. Read more about the new service in the Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed News and the Associated Press.

When the sun comes up

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed.

Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death.

It doesn't matter whether you are a gazelle, or a lion.

When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Kikuyu proverb

8 Password Managers

1Password*
This popular password manager stores them in your Web browser, allowing users to only have one master password to access them all. Makes good use of the cloud to keep it in sync with all your devices. Starts at $36. 14 day free trial option.

Bitwarden*
The free version of this open source password manager is one of the best but it bare bones so if you want more and are willing to pay you’ll find better. User experience not as intuitive as other options. $10 a year for more options though storage is limited.

Dashline
A solid password manager with VPN service. Strong interface. $60 a year.

DataVault
Password manager to protect your data. Can sync through Dropbox. $10 for any operating system.

eWallet
Password manager to protect your data. Nice look, customizable. The Windows version is $20, others $10.

KeePassXC
Open source password manager. Purposely no cloud option. All passwords are stored locally. Free.

Keeper
Password manager. Well-designed interface. Free plan is limited. Paid starts at $34.99 a year.

Lastpass
Generates and saves passwords. Strong cross-platform experience. The company has had some past security issues. Free version is limited. Paid is $36 a year.

More Tech Tools

It takes a slightly better man

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error. – General Peyton March

The Key to happiness in our later years

Each of us has something like a “Happiness 401(k)” that we invest in when we are young, and that we get to enjoy when we are old. And just as financial planners advise their clients to engage in specific behaviors—make your saving automatic; think twice before buying that boat—we can all teach ourselves to do some very specific things at any age to make our last decades much, much happier.

According to a Harvard study, the single most important trait of happy-well elders is healthy relationships. As Robert Waldinger, who directs the study, told me in an email, “Well-being can be built—and the best building blocks are good, warm relationships.” 

Arthur C. Brooks, writing in The Atlantic

Who's Selling My Data?

Pen America offers some help understanding how data brokers have so much personal information about you and how to get it removed.

the world is full of suffering

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. – Helen Keller

deDoxing Yourself

If you have concerns about your privacy, what information is available about you online, here is a short video to explain how to find some of that info through Google “dorking”, reverse image search, and Google alerts.

He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won the top award for Mathematics

June Huh has been awarded the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, for his ability to wander through mathematical landscapes. One might say the same of his path into mathematics itself: that it was characterized by much wandering and a series of small miracles. When he was younger, Huh had no desire to be a mathematician. He was indifferent to the subject, and he dropped out of high school to become a poet. That poetic detour has since proved crucial to his mathematical breakthroughs. His artistry, according to his colleagues, is evident in the way he uncovers those just-right objects at the center of his work, and in the way he seeks a deeper significance in everything he does. “Mathematicians are a lot like artists in that really we’re looking for beauty,” said Federico Ardila-Mantilla, a mathematician at San Francisco State University and one of Huh’s collaborators. “But I think in his case, it’s really pronounced. And I just really like his taste. He makes beautiful things.”       

Jordana Cepelewicz writing in Quanta Magazine

If God wants people to suffer

If God wants people to suffer, he sends them too much understanding. -Yiddish Proverb

It Costs

Anyone can hate. It costs to love- John Williamson

The Magical Rose Garden

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today. -Dale Carnegie

Knowing our Limits & Tolerating those who Disagree

If we truely want to know, it sometimes means recognizing when we don't know. -David Dunning

You Need Two Things

Building a genuine relationship with another person depends on at least two abilities. The first is seeing the world from another person's perspective. The second ability is being able to think about how you can collaborate with and help the other person rather than thinking about what you can get.

We're not suggesting that you be so saintly that a self-interested thought never crosses your mind. What we're saying is that your first move should always be to help. A study on negotiation found that a key difference between skilled and average negotiators was the time spent searching for shared interests and asking questions of the other person.

Follow that model. Start with a friendly gesture and genuinely mean it. Dale Carnegie's classic book on relationships, despite all its wisdom, has the unfortunate title How to Win Friends and Influence People. This makes Carnegie widely misunderstood. You don't "win" a friend. A friend is not an asset you own; a friend is an ally, a collaborator. When you can tell that someone is attempting sincerity, it leaves you cold. It is like the feeling you have when someone calls you by your first name repeatedly in conversation.

Reid Hoffman, The Start-Up of You

The value of video in news content has its limits

Starting in 2015, many online media companies started “pivoting to video,” gutting their traditional newsrooms and spending large amounts of money to build video journalism operations from scratch. Part of the impetus for that pivot was metrics showing that audiences preferred video to text—metrics provided, in large part, by Facebook. In 2014, Facebook claimed that “Facebook has averaged more than 1 billion video views every day.” Those metrics turned out to be grossly inflated, by as much as 60 to 80 percent. Facebook and the like want more video to run ads in because it allows them to make more money. And by claiming that this is what "readers want," news media could be manipulated into creating more video.

Katharine Trendcosta & Mitch Stoltz writing for EFF

It is better

It is better to die well than to live badly. -Jan Hus (who was burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415)

When to Pivot

The common presumption is that you shift to Plan B when something isn’t working. That’s frequently the case but not always. What you’re doing now doesn’t have to be failing for it to make sense to shift. 

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, The Startup of You

How We Approach Failure

Current research suggests that we can approach failure with different mindsets, specifically a “growth mindset” or “fixed mindset”:

·   A fixed mindset holds the belief that we all possess specific skills and talents, and that no matter how much effort we apply, we can’t change that potential. Possession of a fixed mindset means any struggle or failure is attributed to one’s incapacity for growth.

·   A growth mindset holds the belief that we all have unbounded potential for growth and evolution. It makes the simple act of trying enough to move things forward. Failure is simply a pitstop where you refuel your journey and redirect your approach.

The way you interpret failure determines whether or not you keep showing up and doing the work, or whether you shut down and give up. 

It also impacts the risks and opportunities that we might take to achieve success. If you believe that there are not enough opportunities or resources out there for you, then taking a risk or making a mistake can feel like a big disappointment.

Jenny Wang writing in CNBC