Make Time for What You Love

Paul Smeets, who researches the relationship between happiness and money, has become affectionately known as ‘The happiness professor’. His advice for all of us: “Prosperity only becomes well-being if you have time for what you love.”

“The fact that millionaires are happier than the average Dutch person is mainly because they are more active and get more out of life,” says Paul Smeets, Professor of Philanthropy and Sustainability at Maastricht University. He teaches us how to increase our level of happiness, even if we don’t live in the Reuver postcode area, where more than € 56 million prize money was distributed on January 1 as part of the Postcode Loterij. Material things only make us happy for a short time. Instead, Smeets recommends being busy, especially doing outdoor activities. “Maastricht has everything to make you feel happy, from the bustle of the city to the tranquillity of the surrounding countryside.”

Giving money away to charity also bestows joy. “If you give someone with a monthly salary of 2 euros 20 euros as a gift you make them enormously rich,” he says. Research shows that 700 million people worldwide live on less than 2 euros a day.

He gave his parents tickets to André Rieu for Christmas two years ago. Unfortunately, the corona crisis thwarted that. The professor hopes that the party on the Vrijthof will soon return, the fun in the city, the connection between people. “Prosperity only becomes well-being when you have time for what you love,” he says.

To make it a “blissful” year, Smeets says we should buy “quali-time,” by outsourcing chores you don’t like. He grew up in Landgraaf, his mother was a teacher, his father a photographer. He learnt the value of money at home. Like his parents, he has to work hard for it. For himself as a scientist, money now means freedom more than anything else. “I am rather clumsy, so I outsource most of the chores. That way I have time for salsa dancing and piano playing.”