Avoiding Commuting Is the Happiness Equivalent of a $ 40,000 Raise
We all know commuting to work for hours sucks – not only is it expensive , it can also take a toll on your health . The Happiness Researcher calculated how much happier we could be if we shortened our travel times: about $ 40,000 happier.
Contributed by Dan Buettner, National Geographic Research Fellow and author of Prosperity: Finding Happiness in Blue Zones . In an interview with NPR, Buettner says:
If you look at the day-to-day activities of Americans … the two top things we hate most in our day to day life are # 1: housework and # 2: daily driving. In fact, if you can cut the time it takes to commute hours to work each way in your life, that [happiness] is the equivalent of making an extra $ 40,000 a year if you are between $ 50 and $ 60,000. Huge … [So] for us this is an easy way to become happier. Get closer to your place of work.
I’m not sure how he calculated these numbers, except that this is part of a five-year study of the inhabitants of some of the happiest places in the world. However, other polls showed that people would skip a 10 percent increase if it meant being able to work two or three days from home.
Either way, moving to work or working from home can clearly make us happier .