March 20, 2013

Blue Bloods, Pain avoidance and happiness seeking

We’ve been watching “Blue Bloods,” a CBS show about cops, for a while. Frank Reagan (played by Tom Selleck) is the patriarch of the Reagans and the police commissioner of New York city, who presides over a Sunday dinner attended by his two sons, one who’s a beat cop and another who’s a detective, his daughter the assistant district attorney, their children, and Frank’s dad, the former commish of NYC. Each family member brings their experience of the week and opinions to the table and that makes for interesting dinner conversation (and eventually a lecture from Frank :) ). Kinda like the Cosby show in some ways and everyone is a cop in the family. Sure, the show can be a tad smug (“You bleeding hearts have no idea how hard it is be a cop out there and put yourself in harm’s way”), casually dismissive of complex issues such as racism (“If you won’t let the cops help you, don’t blame the cops for your problems”), but it is touching in the way the family bands together in spite of all that is said and done in the heat of the moment. If I had guessed a year back that a Republican leaning show about a New York city cop family would be the one show we’d regularly watch together as a family, I’d have dismissed it as crazy. It’s a far cry from “The Great British Baking Show,” an old favorite at home. And yet, here we are.

I am at the stage in life when I have actually and seriously been thinking about retirement and planning for it and such. One could argue that I should have been planning for it ten or twenty years ago, but that never came about. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan to hang up the boots anytime soon, but I can see that I am clearly on the runway now. Naturally, money is a big piece of the retirement puzzle. So, I’ve been thinking about money in general of late.

There are all kinds of ideas about money.

There’s the utilitarian idea of money as “a problem to be solved.” By this, I mean that what we really want is a full tank of gas and money happens to be the thing we need to make a full tank of gas happen. There are probably other clever ways of getting the gas tank filled but the least convoluted one involves paying money for it. In other words, we have a number of problems we’d like solved, and a straightforward way to solve those problems is to solve the problem of getting money into our bank accounts.

There’s the classic sales and marketing idea of “People use money to buy only two things - happiness and pain relief.” People are looking for all kinds of ways and means to avoid their pain. Marketing is all about getting people to part with their money on the promise that you’ll alleviate their pain at least temporarily. Sales and marketing are hard jobs to do because no one likes to be reminded of their pain and problems. So you have to do this whole song and dance routine where you’re trying to keep their minds off problems and getting them to envision a state that comes after the pain has been avoided but really telling them that there is no other way to avoid pain than to throw some cash your way. The relief of having avoided pain morphs into what passes off as happiness.

If you’re paying money for something, there is a fair chance you’re seeking to avoid some pain or the other. It’s hard to find pure, unadulterated examples to support the old adages, “money doesn’t buy happiness” and “the greatest pleasures in life are free.” Sure, gorgeous sunsets are free but someone somewhere had to suffer some pain in getting you to the beach on time and into the right spot. There’s always some money throwing connected to pain avoidance going around.

There’s the idea from economics of money simply being debt. The US national debt is about 16 trillion dollars or thereabouts. It represents in many ways the “net amount of accrued national pain” we have experienced and continue to bear. We print money every year commensurate with the pain we collectively experience. The bad news is that pain and aversion to pain inflate if we allow them to inflate. The national debt rises steadily without pause each year. But there is hope. They also deflate. If we can tame our aversions a bit, perhaps we can spend a little less money each year. Sort of like a low-cash diet, which eventually helps conquer the sugar-highs of spending. If each of us did this, perhaps we could free up enough money so we can give it to the right people so they can aim it at the right pains and they too could be rid of pain someday.

Money is the currency of pain, not happiness. When we act from desires that cannot be re-characterized as pain avoidance in any obvious way, it tends to result in happiness that is achieved without any recourse to money. So, we have a currency problem here. That which we have been told to diligently accumulate over our lives, as much as we can, turns out to be ultimately currency that can procure only pain pills. But, happiness is, in many ways, how others experience the wealth you helped create that relieves pain for them. The natural forms of happiness experienced by people who you helped avoid pain are trust, gratitude, loyalty and other relationship outcomes. These are the currencies of happiness. They cannot be encashed. They can only be reinvested and they must be.

Pain relief is no doubt an important part of happiness seeking. But, there’s much more to happiness that lies beyond mere relief. Most of us, who are in a position to, plan for a comfortable retirement. But, which of us is planning for a happy one?

As always, stay safe. Have a wonderful week ahead.