For most people, happiness is defined emotionally. It is equated with laughter, optimism, security, well-being, and the like. The trouble with those definitions is that they are based on circumstances that can easily change. Some circumstances make us happy, and others make us unhappy. To be consistently happy, we need a definition that is not subject to circumstances.

Once you have covered your basic financial needs such as food and shelter, being poor isn’t as bad for you as feeling poor. A person’s subjective socioeconomic status is far more critical to their health and well being than their objective socioeconomic status.