I'm Counting My Blessings (Statistically Speaking)

Putting some numbers on the traditional practice of being grateful. And the secret ingredient to be happy

Spending time in nature is a good way to be reminded of our blessings | Picture by Author

Greetings friends!

Happiness is driven by gratitude. Gratitude is a matter of perspective. (Like looking at your bank account and realizing there’s an extra zero. Kidding!)

Perspective enables gratitude in two directions:

1. We can be grateful for all the bad things we have avoided

2. We can be grateful for all the good things we benefit from

Although gratefulness is key, happiness requires an additional ingredient. I’ll explain this below. No, it’s not chocolate chips, although that’s a good guess.

1. Be grateful for all the bad luck you missed

The human condition is marked by adversity. Most of us experience a variety of misfortunes in our lifetime, and the longer we’re here, the greater the likelihood that we’ll have experienced bad luck of some kind.¹ Hobbes was an optimist when he called the human condition “poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Consider this partial list of woes, with estimated prevalence across the population:

Very high prevalence (60% and up, lifetime prevalence):

• At least one chronic health condition (75%)

• At least one adverse childhood experience (70%)²

• Cardiovascular disease (60%)

• At least one parent deceased (45% overall, rising with time)

High prevalence (30-50% lifetime prevalence):³

• Parental divorce during childhood (40-50%)

• Cardiovascular disease in middle age (45%)

• Intimate partner violence of any form (40%)

• Cancer diagnosis (40%)

• Household mental illness or substance abuse in childhood (30%)

• Anxiety disorders (30%)

Common exposures (20-30% lifetime prevalence):

• Parental substance abuse

• Major depression

• Physical abuse in childhood

The list is already depressingly long, so I won’t continue detailing many other forms of bad luck that happen, such as sexual abuse, PTSD, eviction, homelessness, and car accidents.

You can be delighted for everything on the list that you’ve managed to avoid in your life. And a person who’s managed to avoid all these misfortunes can consider themselves one in a thousand.⁴ Lucky indeed.

You’d feel lucky, too, if this were your daily view | Picture by Author

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2. Be grateful for all the blessings bestowed on you

Turning now to the happier topic of good fortune, how likely is it that a person will experience many blessings? Let’s consider the following list as potential sources of good fortune for a person in middle age:

• Being born in a wealthy country like the United States (4%)

• Having above-average intelligence (2.2%, assuming two standard deviations)

• Getting a great education, obtaining professional graduate degrees with distinction (0.2% and 5%, respectively)⁵

• Working in a senior role at a good company for two decades (0.03%)⁶

• Being happily married for 30 years (25%)

• Having well-adjusted and thriving children (60%)

• Retiring early (before 55) in good health (1%)⁷

• Achieving financial independence (1%)⁸

A happy marriage with good kids is a source of significant happiness, and both occur with some frequency. The remaining items are much rarer. If you’ve experienced any of them, you should consider yourself blessed.⁹ Like, you got a free lifetime coffee pass to your favorite coffee shop, blessed.

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Happiness requires another ingredient

If we learn to be grateful for what bad luck we avoid and the blessings we enjoy, is that enough to make us feel happy? For many people, the answer is no, at least not yet. What, then, prevents us from being happy? (Besides the fact that some people are just miserable bastards by nature, I mean.)

The best formulation I’ve found of the secret ingredient is this: Don’t miss what you don’t have.

Knowing we’ve avoided bad luck and recognizing our good luck, many of us still fall prey to wishing we had more. We pine for something we don’t have. Although striving is vital to the human condition, striving is counterproductive when it makes us unhappy amidst abundance.

Our role models cross the ages to remind us of this fundamental truth:

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.—Lao Tzu

When desires go, joy comes—Buddha

The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied.—Lucretius

It seems wrong to pile on the World Economic Forum when it must seem they’re already sitting in a giant pile of … (ahem), their 2016 quote seems to fit: “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.” They were on to something.

If this makes your mind satisfied, I’m happy | Picture by Author

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Remember to play the long game

There’s one final aspect to keep in mind when pursuing happiness. As I trust is clear by now, the human experience is characterized by suffering as well as joy. The longer we live, the greater the likelihood that we’ll encounter misfortune.

The Greek statesman Solon told King Croesus that, for all his wealth and good fortune, Croesus could not consider himself lucky. Why not? Because he was still alive.

Count no man lucky until he is dead.—Solon

No matter how lucky you’ve been, tomorrow could change everything. I say, all the more reason to count your blessings today. And every day.

Be well.

PS — I never thought I’d be telling people to die lucky, but there you have it.

1. The Stoics understood well that life is characterized by suffering. Their philosophy encourages us to address hardship head-on, with perspective. Knowing that we will suffer, we are not surprised when misfortune strikes. And knowing how many ways bad luck arises, we can feel fortunate for all the things we are not suffering from.

2. The adverse childhood experiences include emotional abuse (>60% for adolescents and 30% among adults), household mental illness (around 30%), physical abuse (around 30%), parental separation or divorce (around 30%), household substance abuse (say 25%), sexual abuse (11% overall, skewed highly towards women), witnessing domestic violence (9%), and an incarcerated household member (say 7%).

3. Chronic disease and major medical events are nearly universal experiences in an aging population. The lifetime risk of cancer is about 40% (a bit lower for women). The lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease is over 60% by advanced age, with almost half of all U.S. adults having some type of cardiovascular disease. Approximately 60% of Americans currently live with at least one chronic condition.

4. Calculating the probability of a series of events is tricky. It is easy enough to multiply probabilities together. Often, however, probabilities change after one occurs. For example, if a person suffers childhood trauma, they’re more likely to suffer from anxiety or depression later. We can say the likelihood that a person experiencing one or more bad luck events will experience more bad luck events goes up. Correspondingly, the likelihood that a person experiences no bad luck events at all into late adulthood is statistically quite rare - 1 in 1,000

5. I had to make some specific assumptions here: a person obtains two professional degrees (an MBA and a JD) and graduates from each program magna cum laude.

6. Less than a third of workers aged 55 and up have a tenure of at least 20 years with one company. And less than 1% hold executive positions. Holding an executive position for 20 years at one company is exceedingly rare.

7. Only 6% of individuals retire between the ages of 50 and 54. Of these, only 21% cite financial security as the reason. Most early retirements in this age are the result of a health problem or similar constraint.

8. Although financial independence can be achieved at much more modest levels, for our purposes, I’ve assumed our lucky individual is in the top 1% of wealth.

9. A person who’s enjoyed each of these things is a unicorn indeed, with odds ranging from one in 10 million to one in 100 million, adjusting for positive correlation among items. For example, high intelligence is correlated with higher education attainment, advanced degrees are correlated with higher income and executive potential, and high income is correlated with marriage stability and child outcomes.