Читать книгу Creating a Happy Retirement - Dr Ronald W. Richardson - Страница 9

The nature of one’s character is central to the question of happiness. In the first ten years of our working life, over forty years ago, we lived in the inner-city neighborhoods of two middle-sized cities in the eastern United States. We lived among and worked with some very poor people. We ourselves were in a low income bracket. However, we were happy and knew many happy people. We met people of character who were not depressed by their relative poverty or run down by their living conditions. They were never going to have the luxury of planning a life in retirement in quite the style of most of you reading this book. However, because they lived a principled life, and had strong virtues of character, they were sure to be happy in their old age.

Certainly, having an adequate level of income is one factor in happiness. We cannot discount this. Studies indicate that as a retired couple in the U.S. moves toward having a minimum annual income of about $50,000, they report being increasingly happy. After that level, the relation between income and reported happiness slowly begins to level off.

Other factors that research indicates are important include a sense of meaning in life, having good relationships with important people in our lives, and doing things that we define, in our own terms, as pleasurable. Some form of spirituality seems to be important to most people, but many atheists report high levels of happiness. Happy people have high levels of gratitude, live hopeful and optimistic (rather than cynical and pessimistic) lives, and engage in the challenges of life around them, rather than withdrawing from life.

Altruism is another characteristic. Many of those who report being happy seem to have embodied some version of John F. Kennedy’s famous statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” In other words, they are not looking for people to do for them, but they are looking for what they can do for others. This is one aspect of good character.