The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

(this is raw unedited text, computer transcribed directly from the audio, without voice inflection, pauses etc. Sometimes this results in the text implying the opposite of the intended meaning.)

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The Selfish Path to Romance - download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com or at amazon.com.
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(From a Movie)
You can't stand alone. Give in, learn to get along with people, start to design the kind of buildings everybody else does. Then you'll be rich, you'll be famous, you'll be admired. You'll be one of us.

Is that what disturbs you about me, Peter that I want to stand alone? Is that it?
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And if you do what everybody else wants you to do and what everybody expects of you. Will you be rich, even if you have a lot of money, you might be rich, but maybe not in spirit. And that drop is from The Fountainhead. And the fountainhead was written, of course, by Ayn Rand a y n, ra n, d, and money. Let's talk about becoming rich and money. And can money buy happiness. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today with Dr. Tara Smith. She's a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. And Dr. Smith is the author of several books on ethics, and a pamphlet money can buy happiness. And that's a wonderful pamphlet a real eye opener. It doesn't ensure happiness. But it's a wonderful eye opener. And that's available at amazon.com, or at my website, Dr. kennard.com. And I want to welcome you to the show, Dr. Smith. You've said that money can buy happiness, but it doesn't necessarily buy happiness in every case. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sure. And thanks so much for having me. I love getting to talk about this, the title of that pamphlet was deliberately provocative and trying to get people's attention. And literally you can't buy happiness in the sense that you can buy my pamphlet on happiness, or you can buy a suit off the rack. But we are so accustomed to the denunciation of money, money is the root of all evil, and people are greedy and selfish and they just want money. And really, that's a short, the way that that denunciation is used is as code and a shorthand to slam self a person's self interest more broadly. Oh, interesting, what helps me to want to write in defense of money, which is central to people's actually being able to have happy lives. Now, you asked about exactly how it can play this role. And as I say, In the article, it cannot Money cannot guarantee happiness. But what money represents money is just you know, the symbol, the medium through which people trade goods, but what it really stands for is goods, right? Meaning the thing that people have made that are valuable to people, whether it be physical material goods, like clothes, and houses and medicine, food, that sort of thing, or whether it be services, like a musical composition, maybe that's not the best example, you know, gardening services, trim your lawn, so you don't have to do it in the heat, right or your hair, or teach you how to speak French, or whatever it might be, or medical services, right, or computer repair services, there are all sorts of valuable things, goods and services that people produce. And if you are the kind of person who produces values, you will gain money, which will help you gain your happiness because you all have that money to then spend on the wonderful product of other people, you can customize your experience to be more of what you want it to be what makes your life satisfying,

Right and, and it can be it can, it doesn't necessarily buy happiness, people can spend their money improperly, they can buy drugs, they can go gamble with it, they can just throw their lives away buy a lot of goods, that showy house where they don't value the house, because they love that type of design. But because they can show it off to other people, they'll never get happy that way.

People sometimes have really stupid motivations for wanting money, and they sometimes try to gain money in completely dishonest, non productive ways that aren't really going to contribute to their happiness. But unfortunately, many people conclude from the fact of those people that money itself must be bad, and that doesn't follow. Okay, medicine, good, wonderful medicine that helped many, many people tremendously. Those can be misused, right? That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with medicine. So just the fact that money per se can be misused is, you know, a relatively superficial side issue. It doesn't get to the nature of what money is where money comes from. There would be no money if there were no good, genuinely objective values that human beings created thought up and then went about actually bringing into existence that are valuable to other people that we want. That's why then we created this thing called money. So get us past the barter system so that we could much more efficiently and effectively and productively exchange the wealth that we create. So that's really more core what it is.

So there's a confusion though, because there are the people that you're referring to the people who make the shoes or who make the air conditioning, or the airplanes, or the cars or the good food, the gourmet food or even the McDonald's, the they're, they're the money makers, the money creators, and then there are the people who are, . . .

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Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds. That's it. A very quick break and then Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is The Selfish Path to Romance - a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance. That IS interesting.
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. . . They are the money makers, the money creators. And then there are the people who are the money appropriators that's what you call them. And that's a really important distinction for people to have that if you are a money creator, you can take a note and you'd you make it a legitimate product that's decent, then you know, it's not snake oil or whatnot, then you can feel proud of your wealth. Whereas if you're somebody who's taking money and money appropriator, which would be what the entitlement programs we have going now what would be some examples, someone who's stealing money, a quick buck or a fast buck is usually used that expression meaning in effect, trying to get something for nothing, trying to get things that he hasn't earned, and that he isn't willing to try to earn. So whether it be through government programs, demands for handouts, or whether it be just on a more individual basis, and many other variations. It's the I don't want to earn I don't want to produce anything. Yeah, I want to gain anything that I will bring to the trading floor, so to speak, right? And say, Hey, this is what I made. I think this can be really valuable to you, if you think so let's trade right now, I think thinking you raises a really important one between the money maker, the creator, the producer, and the money appropriate, or that's a distinction that I'm Rand discusses, by the way in an essay called the money making personality and I would really recommend the essay and the book, there's a book that was published in 2011. It's called Why businessmen need philosophy. It's the second edition of this book. It is by no means useful only for people in business. There are a lot of good discussions of the essential character of money and in one of these essays iron Rand talks about this idea that a lot of people because they have to superficial and understanding of what money is and where money comes from. They just want to they want to get money the currency more cash as it were, right by manipulating other people by cheating other people by stealing from mom's purse.

Yeah, yeah.

And stands. The parasite follows the opinions about okay, I think that's that's the point you're making the Creator stands on his own judgment. And the parasite follows the opinions of others.

Right? And he's just trying to manipulate what other people take unfair advantage of what other people have already created. So Han artists, you have kinda you make the money maker, he brings a value to trade, right? Right.

Now, we, you know, I have examples in my life, and I'm sure you do have someone who's poor and they're happy. I mean, they're, they have brings such joy to their life and their family's life. Can a poor person be happy?

Yes, undoubtedly, a poor person can be happy. He couldn't be happier if he has more money, because more money gives him more options. It gives them more choices about how to spend his time what he has to do, but happiness isn't a function purely of how much money you have. We also know about the rich people who aren't right, right. There's no necessary direct cause and effect correlation here. But I mean, happiness is a matter of fundamentally how you lead your life. That's wonderful. And can you make another incomes from Am I leading my life in the kind of way that is, in principle, going to achieve my values? Okay, so that helped me to flourish. That's really what your happiness is a function of.

So if the person is flourishing, but they're an artist, and they don't make a lot of money, they can certainly be happy, even if they don't have man a mansion. So listen, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. If you want the pamphlet that Dr. Tara Smith is written it's money can buy happiness, a fascinating read a short pamphlet and you can get it at amazon.com or at my website, DrKenner.com Dr. K e n n er.com. Thank you so much, Dr. Tara Smith for joining us today.
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For more Dr. Kenner podcasts go to DrKenner.com. And please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co author Dr. Edwin Locke, who is world famous for his theories on goal setting.

Constant fresh and interesting communication makes yourself lovable. But this takes work to keep your relationship and the conversation interesting over a period of years. stay mentally active and alert. Together, learn and discover new things, acquire new tastes, study new ideas and choose new values. If you shut your mind off, you'll become a bore and no one will enjoy talking with you not even your father. Vegetables are good to eat, but they aren't any fun to converse with. If you want to be loved work to make yourself lovable.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at amazon.com