If it makes you feel better, it turns out that althogh people may report many things, they are in fact very bad at knowing their own states of mind. NOt only are people very bad at [redicted what makes them happy, they aren’t even very good at knowing when they’re in ap particular state of mind. But that generality aside, it turns out that for most people money is completely unrelated to happiness. In fact, studies show pretty conclusivey that tendencies towards happiness and unhappiness are fairly inflexible, in the sensethat sudden changes may lead to a temporary swing in mood ( win a lot of money you may be happy for a while - although you’rea ctually just as likely to get stressed as heck- but you will swing back to your normal state of mood within a few weeks; suffer a great trauma - even things like paralysis- and you may be sad for a while but most people within a few weeks to months also swing back to pretty muich where they were before the trauma.

So, over all, the study shows mostly that people have no idea what makes them happy.