Comment by SiVal

Yes, and I wasn't talking about one's income, but success at one's "work". The "achievements you can be proud of" will mostly be in the area of what you "do" since most achievements you can be proud of take a great deal of time and, as you say, "working harder", or they wouldn't be a source of much pride. What you spend a great deal of time working hard at is, for the most part, your "work", what you "do" at that stage in your life.

>"I think it's been established beyond doubt that a successful career doesn't make you happy...[very limited] correlation of income to happiness...."

Dan Gilbert's work, applies to "achievements you can be proud of" in general, not just one's income, so if you think it's relevant, then you can stop worrying about working harder. It won't permanently raise your "baseline happiness". But Gilbert's work, and the work he cites, is only "established beyond doubt" in the popular press, not in cog sci, where there is still a lot of wiggle room left and a lot of debate going on.

I like Gilbert's work overall, though, and it is one of the reasons I am expressing skepticism about the validity of the deathbed wish for "less time at the office". It might depend on how narrowly one thinks of "career" or "at the office" or "working" (I mean it more broadly), but if Gilbert has shown anything, it is that we seldom know how a given change really would make (or have made) us feel after a while--we just think we know.