Are We Working too Much?

Although the current stage of civilization development is characterized by high technologies and innovations, a large number of people do not describe themselves as being happy. For example, according to the source where you can buy annotated bibliography, the Happy Planet Index of the United States is 37.3; it constitutes the 105th place in the world. Therefore, material and financial well-being is not directly related to the degree of subjective utility and happiness. The essence of the problem may be attributed to the high level of stress and other difficulties in modern offices.

It seems that the majority of the population is working too much. It means that people consider their allocation of time to be not optimal from the ex post perspective. They would prefer to sacrifice some amounts of financial resources in order to have more rest and free time. Moreover, the understanding of key life principles by young and old people is different. Thus, the same people may have different values and priorities during different stages of their life. If one wants to increase their feeling of happiness, they should be more focused on their long-term interests. In this way, they may allocate their time and other scarce resources more efficiently.

It should be stressed that people work not for pleasure but in order to earn money and be able to enjoy some material and non-material goods and services indirectly. However, if the positive consequences and results of work do not cover that dissatisfaction associated with additional efforts, one should re-arrange their time. Therefore, people should try to maximize their total level of happiness rather than monetary income. Thus, optimization is unique for each individual and should not be conducted by any government or central agency. If people are aware of their long-term interests and preferences, they will be able to make correct decisions.