Personal Development

  • How Has The Job Market Changed Since 1988?

    1998 was a long time ago. My oldest son was just a twinkle in my eye. Michael Jackson was touring the world for his ‘Bad’ album, and ‘Rain Man’ topped the movie charts. It’s also the year that Microsoft Office was released. 

    A lot has changed since then. For obvious reasons, the U.S. labor market has changed radically since then … but how different is it really?

     

    Most-Common-Job_WEBvia visualcapitalist 

    The data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so we can assume it’s relatively accurate

    In 1988, consumer-facing roles, such as salespeople and cashiers, were the most common jobs in 46 states. Comparing that to 2024 highlights how much less reliance we have on brick-and-mortar stores. 

    While not entirely different, now fast food workers are the most common job in 15 states. This is unsurprising in light of the shift toward lower-wage & flexible-hour service jobs. Meanwhile, retail salespersons are still the top job in 11 states. 

    Operations managers, home health aides, and freight movers have made significant gains in the U.S. labor market. 

    I was surprised to see how many home health aides there were, but considering the aging U.S. population, it makes sense. 

    The U.S. is still clearly a consumer economy; however, the focus has switched towards logistics and supply chain, as people shop increasingly online. 

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of work. People talk about change, but so far, things have felt relatively stable. That’s about to shift. AI is advancing faster than most realize—we’re still early on the curve, but the steep climb is beginning.

    We’re entering a phase where AI is no longer just a tool—it’s becoming a collaborator in both our personal and professional lives. This shift will reshape how we work, create, and make decisions. For business leaders, that means looking past the hype and focusing on real value, workforce readiness, and building trust. For employees, it means adapting to a new kind of teamwork—one that includes AI as a core partner in creativity and productivity.

    How will those changes show up in a chart like this?
     
    We live in interesting times!
  • When Worlds Collide: Timeless Wisdom & Evolutionary Technology in Trading with Matthew Piepenburg

    Back in 2020, I had a Zoom meeting with Matthew Piepenburg of Signals Matter. Of course, being the height of the Pandemic, it was over Zoom. Even though it was a private discussion, there was so much value in our discussion that we decided to share parts of it here. 

    While Matt's understanding of markets is based on Macro/Value investing, we use advanced AI and quantitative methods for our approach. 

    As you might expect, there are a lot of differences in how we view the world, decision-making, and the current market environment. Nonetheless, we share a lot of common beliefs as well.   

    Our talk explores several interesting areas and concepts. I encourage you to watch it below

     

    Via YouTube.

    To summarize a couple of the key points, markets are not the economy, and normal market dynamics have been out the window for a long time. In addition, part of why you're seeing increased volatility and noise is that there are so many interventions and artificial inputs to our market system.

    While Matt and I may approach the world with very different lenses, we both believe in "timeless wisdom". 

    Ask yourself, What was true yesterday, today, and will stay true tomorrow

    That is part of the reason we focus on emerging technologies and constant innovation … they remain relevant. 

    Something we can both agree on is that if you don't know what your edge is … you don't have one. 

     

    If You Don't Know What Your Edge Is You Don't Have One _GapingVoid

    Hope you enjoyed the video.

    Let me know what other topics you'd like to hear more about. 

    Onwards!

  • How Long You Have Left

    We only have a limited time on this earth … and a lot of it is spent on frivolous activities. 

    How much time do you think the average millennial spends on their phones … or a baby-boomer sits in front of the TV?

    The answer is a lot.

    Although this chart hasn't been updated recently, it still provides a helpful glimpse of the bigger picture. 

     

    How-much-time-we-have-infographic (1)via Anna Vital

    Nine years in front of entertainment devices – another 10.5 years spent working. You get the idea.

    If you have goals you want to accomplish, places you want to go, and lifestyle aspirations to experience, this puts the idea of finding and living your passion into perspective. 

    Do you have the time to waste it?

    VisualCapitalist put together a chart projecting longevity based on 2020 mortality rates.

     

    OC_Life-Expectancy-by-Age_1600px_Oct31

    via visualcapitalist
     

    According to this calculator, since I'm over 60, I only have about 20 years left.   I expect more!

    There are some interesting statistical facts in this; for example, an average American baby boy can expect to live until 74 … but if that boy turns 21, his life expectancy jumps to over 75. 

    While these numbers appear high, there are two key considerations. First, COVID-19 heavily reduced these numbers because mortality rates increased. 

    Also, remember that these numbers are based on 2020 averages, which may differ from your own (specifically considering your race, income, location, etc.). These numbers also don't take into account expected medical and technology advances, etc. 

    Ultimately, I believe Purpose is one of the most significant catalysts of longevity. People often die when they retire … not because they're done working, but because they're done striving. 

    If you're not growing, you're dying!

  • Diminishing Returns in AI: The Most Common AI Mistake

    At some point, more of the same stops paying off … it is called the law of diminishing returns.

    Law of Diminishing Returnsvia Sketchplanations

    Nature (and common sense) reminds us that equilibrium is important. For example, when you exercise too much, you get injured; when you drink too much water, you get poisoned; etc. 

    This concept applies almost everywhere.

    • It's why diversification is so important in portfolio construction theory. 
    • Or, why you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket (concentrating your risk).
    • And, my favorite, it's also why you shouldn't only eat vegetables.

    A related nugget of wisdom from the extreme … Too much of a good thing is a bad thing! 

    And of course … Be moderate in everything, including moderation.

    A recent study on the effects of ChatGPT use on brain activity also supports this theme. 

    via "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

  • My Artificial Intelligence Journey

    Time seems to go faster as I get older. Likewise, technology seems to be advancing faster than ever, too.

    Take AI as an example… even though I've been involved in this field for many years, I'm surprised by how rapidly it's improving now.

    I suspect that part of the surprise comes from comparing the current pace of change to my memories of how long it took to improve in the past. Even though I had a sense of the quickening, the thing about exponential technologies is that there's a tipping point … and clearly we're past that point on the curve.

    I'm often met with surprise when I talk about my AI journey … because it began in 1991, when it was still hard to spell AI.

    Looking back, it makes a lot more sense to me than it did as I was moving through it. Here is a video about that journey and what it means for you and your future. 

     

    Click here to view the transcript of the video.

    Looking back on my life and career, one could argue that I got my start in AI with my most recent company, Capitalogix, which was founded over 20 years ago. Or, perhaps, we could go back further and say it started with my previous company, IntellAgent Control (which was an early AI company, focused on the creation and use of intelligent agents). By today's standards, the technology we used back then was too simple to be considered AI, but at the time, we were on the cutting edge.

    Maybe we should go further back and say it started when I became the first lawyer in my firm to use a computer … or was it when I first fell in love with technology? 

    The truth is … I've spent my whole life on this path. My fascination with making better decisions, taking smarter actions, and getting better results probably started when I was two years old (because of the incident discussed in the video).

    Ultimately, the starting point is irrelevant. Looking back, it seems inevitable. The decisions I made, the people I met, and my experiences … they all led me here.

    However, at any point in the journey, if you asked, "Is this where you thought you'd end up?" I doubt that I'd have said yes. 

    I've always been fascinated by what makes people successful and how to become more efficient and effective. In a sense, that's what AI does. It's a capability amplifier. 

    When I transitioned from being a corporate securities lawyer to an entrepreneur, Artificial Intelligence happened to be the best vehicle I found to do that. It made sense then, and it makes sense now.

    Like most things in life, it's easy to see the golden thread looking backwards, but it's a lot harder to see projecting forwards.

    I wouldn't have it any other way. It certainly keeps things interesting.

    Onwards!

  • My Best Investment …

    My kids are getting older. In fact, not only are they both adults, but they're both married. Father's Day looks a little different than it used to. 

     

    Fathersdayfb

     

    As I look back, I realize that there was an investment I made that paid off in a big way, and I want to share it with you.

    Like many parents, I wanted to teach my children that, to a large extent, they control what happens to them. One of the first ways I did that was to set up a "compensation system" for them to earn video games.

    Some parents try to limit the amount of time their kids spend watching TV or playing video games. I tried something different. Instead, my kids earned their games by reading books. Here is a photo from way back then.

    BZandH_edited

    Paid With Play.

    Here's how it worked. When they were younger, 10 books were enough to earn a small game. When they finished a book, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the bookstore for us to pick up the next book together. Likewise, when they finished the requisite number of books, it was their right, and my obligation, to take them to the computer store or game store for them to choose any game they wanted.

    When they finished a hundred books, they got a bonus of earning the next game system. That meant if they had a Nintendo, they could now also get a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

    How Can You Encourage a Jump to the Next Level?

    There came a point when I wanted one of my sons to start reading grown-up books. He was comfortable reading a certain type of book, and didn't want to read the kind of books that I read. So, I created a bonus system that counted a particular book as three books. I didn't force him; I just let the easier path to a reward "whisper" in his ear what to read. Once he finished that, he never went back to teen fiction.

    It Is a Great Way to Learn About Your Kids.

    I also used the bookstore visits to gauge how the boys were doing. For example, I might say, "I notice that you read five books in that series, maybe you'd like this book". Or, "That sure is a lot of science fiction; what was the last biography you read?"  For the most part, though, I didn't care what they read. The key was to get them to want to choose certain books for their own reasons. Ultimately, their preference meant they were learning to love reading.

    It Puts Them In Control of Their Destiny and Rewards.

    My younger son likes competition. He also broke or misplaced many things. So, to earn back the Game Boy unit he lost, I challenged him to read five books in five days. These weren't easy books either. It was designed to stretch him, and also to teach him that he could read a book a night. The bet was that he either finished all the books in the allocated time, or none of them counted towards games or Game Boys. On the other hand, if he read a book a night for two weeks, not only would he get his Game Boy back, but the books would also count towards a game. It worked like a charm, and we were both happy.

    So, Who Got the Better Bargain?

    As they started to get into their teenage years, I needed to up the ante a little. So, 500 books meant they got a laptop of their choice. Both boys cashed in, and probably felt like they were taking advantage of their dad.

    I got what I wanted, though; both my boys love reading, and know that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to … one step at a time.

    Here is a recent picture of us.   All of us love reading … and none of us needs diapers.

     

    39C25ED2-732A-4E0D-B301-1A698E0E50E7

    Speaking of diapers, I've leveled up to become a grandfather. Watching my oldest become a father is the ultimate dividend.

    I still remember my father joking with me to be careful of what I said about him, because I would have kids who would do the same to me.

    Watching my granddaughter grow, explore, and enjoy the world is an incredible blessing. 

    Plus, I know Karma is a Bitch. … wait till she starts using everything she's learned against him.

    It is part of the cycle of life … just like diapers.

  • Trying to Understand Happiness …

    I am often amazed at how little human nature has changed throughout recorded history.

    Despite the exponential progress we’ve made in health, wealth, society, tools, and understanding … we still struggle to find meaning, purpose, and happiness in our lives and our existence.

    Last month, I shared an article on Global Happiness Levels in 2025. Here are a few bullets that summarize the findings: 

    • We underestimate others’ kindness, but it’s more common than we think.
    • Community boosts happiness—eating and living with others matter.
    • Despair is falling globally, except in isolated, low-trust places like the U.S.
    • Hope remains—trust and happiness can rebound with connection and a sense of purpose.

    Upon reflection, that post didn’t attempt to define happiness. This post will focus on how to do that.

    While it seems like a simple concept, happiness is complex. We know many things that contribute to and detract from it; we know humans strive for it, but it is still surprisingly challenging to put a uniform definition on it. 

    A few years ago, a hobbyist philosopher analyzed 93 philosophy books, spanning from 570 BC to 1588, in an attempt to find a universal definition of Happiness. Here are those findings.

     

    Ktn23nkt45n81

    via Reddit.

    It starts with a simple list of definitions from various philosophers. It does a meta-analysis to create some meaningful categories of definition. Then it presents the admittingly subjective conclusion that:

     

    Happiness is to accept and find harmony with reason

     

    My son, Zach, pointed out that while “happiness” is a conscious choice, paradoxically, the “pursuit of happiness” often results in unhappiness. Why? Because happiness is a result of acceptance. However, when happiness is the goal, you often focus on what you’re lacking instead of what you already have. You start to live in the ‘Gap’ instead of the ‘Gain’

    So, it got me thinking – and that got me to play around with search and AI, a little, to broaden my data sources and perspectives. If you would like to view the raw data, here are the notes I compiled (along with the AI-generated version of what this article could have been, had it been left to AI, rather than me and Zach).

    Across centuries, philosophers have wrestled with a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to live a good life?
     
    As entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders, we often chase performance, innovation, or edge — but underneath it all, there’s a quieter inquiry: Am I living well?
     
    Happiness aside, across 93 influential philosophical texts spanning two millennia, one word consistently reappears: Eudaimonia. This is not happiness in the modern sense of pleasure, but a richer concept of human flourishing — a life filled with purpose, virtue, and meaning.
     
    • Ancient thinkers saw happiness not as a mood, but as a life aligned with purpose and virtue.
    • Some prioritized inner character; others emphasized harmony with the divine or nature.
    • Debate endures over the role of external goods — wealth, luck, friends.
    • During the Renaissance, the conversation shifted toward subjective experience.
    • Across eras, the thread remains: Happiness is cultivated, not consumed.

     

    Contradictions and Tensions

    Thoughts on happiness contain paradoxes, contradictions, and tensions. Examining the boundaries between what you are certain of and what you are uncertain of is where insights occur. Here are a few to get you started.
     
    • Virtue vs. External Goods: Aristotle acknowledges external goods (wealth, friends) as necessary for complete happiness, while Stoics claim virtue alone suffices. This tension challenges the simplicity of virtue-based happiness, suggesting a nuanced balance between inner character and outer circumstances.
    • Subjective vs. Objective Happiness: Ancient philosophers often defined happiness as an objective state (living virtuously or intellectually flourishing), whereas modern definitions more often emphasize the subjective satisfaction varying by individual. This tension probes whether happiness is a universal or personal experience.
    • Happiness as Pleasure vs. Happiness as Duty/Struggle: Epicureanism equates happiness with pleasure (absence of pain), but Cynics and Stoics emphasize enduring hardship and discipline as the path to happiness, which presents a paradox between comfort and resilience.

     

    Three Metaphors To Help You Think About Happiness

    Metaphors help make abstract ideas more concrete, memorable, and easier to grasp. Here are three to consider.
     

    The Ship Captain (Stoicism)

    • Metaphor: You can’t control the ocean (external events), but you can steer your ship (your mind). 
    • Clarification: Highlights control over internal states despite external chaos.

    The Team Soul (Plato’s Tripartite Soul)

    • Metaphor: The soul is a team where reason is the coach, spirit is the player, and appetite is the goalie. Happiness is achieved when the coach directs the players well. 
    • Clarification: Demonstrates the importance of internal harmony and self-governance.

    The Garden (Aristotle’s Life Cultivation)

    • Metaphor: Happiness is like tending a garden over time — it requires continuous effort, nurturing virtues (soil quality), and sometimes external help (sunlight, rain). 
    • Clarification: This shows happiness as a process, not a momentary state.

    Reach out – I’m curious to hear what you think!

  • Relics Of A Bygone Era …

    The U.S. Treasury is ceasing production of pennies – as they cost more to make than they’re worth.

    According to a 2024 report from the U.S. Mint, we lose $85M a year minting pennies, as they cost 3.69 cents to make. 

    That makes the phrase “penny wise and pound foolish” officially passé – at least in America. 

     

    Images (3)

     

    Many phrases like this still exist. It’s an interesting example of the power of language. Words take on meaning beyond their original usage … and often remain relevant long after their origin has become irrelevant. 

    For example:

    • Burning the midnight oil means working hard, but it comes from a time before electricity, when you had to use candles and lamps to light a room after dark. 
    • Time to face the music refers to dealing with the consequences of one’s actions, but originates from a time when disgraced military officers had to face a drumline upon discharge.
    • More recently, hang-ups were what you did when you replaced a phone receiver in its cradle. Now, you can only really find a desk phone in an office. Even then, you don’t need to place it in its cradle to hang it up. 
    • Put a sock in it comes from the act of putting a sock into the trumpet of a gramophone.
    • And Stereotypes come from a type of printing plate commonly used in old-school newspaper publishing. While it still refers to impressions … the origin is lost on the average user of this word. Filming is rarely done on film; footage is from when film was measured in feet and frames, and you don’t need to stay tuned because your television doesn’t need to be tuned to receive the channels you like. 

    Until recently, technologies (and the phrases they spawned) lasted for decades, if not longer. As technology evolves at an ever-accelerating pace, new tools, platforms, and ways of communicating emerge almost daily. With these innovations come fresh slang, buzzwords, and cultural references that often catch on quickly—think “DM me,” “ghosting,” or “cloud computing.” Yet just as rapidly as they rise, many of these terms fade into obscurity, replaced by the next wave of trends. What was once cutting-edge can become outdated in a matter of years, if not months. This cycle of innovation and obsolescence is a hallmark of the modern digital era.

    However, much like these old idioms, the fleeting nature of these technologies and jobs doesn’t mean they lack value or impact. Some expressions endure because they capture something universally human—emotion, conflict, humor—even if the context changes. Similarly, technologies may evolve, but their core functions or purposes often remain. The fax machine gives way to email, and email to instant messaging—but the need for communication is constant.

    This principle also applies to work and tools. While job titles and methods may change, the underlying skills — such as critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity — remain timeless. A carpenter today might use laser-guided saws instead of hand tools, just as a marketer might use data analytics instead of intuition alone, but the essence of their work persists. Innovation reshapes how we do things, not always what we do.

    Just as enduring phrases carry forward old meanings in new settings, so too will jobs, tools, and skills adapt and survive.

    Onwards!

  • Is AI Making You And Your Team Smarter?

    At the core of Capitalogix’s existence is a commitment to systemization and automation. 

    At first, the goal was to eliminate fear, greed, and discretionary mistakes from trading.

    Over time, we’ve worked hard at making countless things easier. Much like math, we found that the best practice is to simplify complex processes before trying to automate them.

    I’m surprised by how many times I have had the same realization … Less is more.

    Likewise, I’ve learned the hard way that a great strategy is useless if people don’t get it. That is part of the reason that frameworks are so important.

    Ultimately, the process, the system, and the automation should follow this basic recipe if you want it to succeed:  Simple, Repeatable, Consistent, and Scalable.

    Finding ways to automate sounds great. Increasing efficiency, effectiveness, and certainty sounds great, too  … but, routines and habits become ruts and limits when they become un-measured, un-managed, or forgotten

    A practical reality of increasing automation and constant progress is that it becomes increasingly important to have expiration dates on decisions, systems, components, and automations. We need to shine a light on things to make sure they still make sense or to determine whether we have a better option.

    Freeing humans to create the most value sounds great, too … but, as the pace of technological progress increases, the importance of freeing people to do more diminishes if they don’t actively rise to the occasion.

     

    My Use of Technology

    I got my first computer in 1984. It was the original Macintosh. That means I’ve been searching for and collecting technology tools to make business and life easier and better since the mid-80s.

    It has been a long and winding road. These days,  it seems like I’m constantly looking for new ways to use AI in my life.

    As you might guess, I “play” with a lot of tools. Of course, I think of it as research, discovery, and skill-building … rather than playing. Why? Because it is something I’m good at, it produces value – and it gives me energy … so, I make sure to reserve a place for it in my routine.

    While most of what I explore doesn’t make it into my “real work” routine, I now have a toolbox of dozens of tools that I use for everything from research, notetaking, brainstorming, writing, and even relaxing. 

    It’s a little embarrassing, but my most popular YouTube video is an explainer video on Dragon NaturallySpeaking from 13 years ago. It was (and still is) dictation software, but from a time before your phone gave you that capability. 

    As I focus on systemization, I also have to focus on optimization. 

    Using generative AI tools for daily research has fundamentally changed how I approach information gathering. What began as a meditative practice—slowly reading, digesting, and reflecting on material—has evolved into a faster, more expansive process. With AI, I can now scan and synthesize a much broader set of sources in far less time. The quality of the summaries and takeaways is high, enabling me to deliver more value to others. I can write better articles, share timely insights with fellow business owners, and keep my team well-informed. The impact on others has grown — but something subtle has shifted in my own learning.

    The tradeoff is that if I’m not as careful as I used to be while doing the research, and I don’t engage with the material in the same way I did before. When I did the research manually, I was “chewing and swallowing” each idea, pausing to make connections, reflecting on implications, and wrestling with the nuance. That process was slower, but it etched ideas more deeply into memory.

    As a result, my favorite articles of the week or month would show up in how I spoke on stage, what I wrote about, and how I worked through roadblocks with employees. Now, I notice that although I’m exposed to more information, it doesn’t have the same weight or impact. I’m consuming more at scale … but retaining less, or perhaps less deeply (at least in my head). In contrast, I store much more, both in terms of quantity and depth, in my second brain (meaning, the digital repositories available for search when needed).

    This brings up a fundamental distinction between knowledge storage and knowledge retrieval. Storage is about accumulating information, while retrieval is about quickly accessing and using the correct information at the right time. It requires digestion. 

    It’s kind of like Amazon. Amazon has made buying books and getting them on my shelves easier than ever. I’ve got 1000s of books with answers to many of life’s questions. But, I’d estimate that I’ve really only read around half of the books I currently have on my shelf. The point is that having a book on your shelf with the answer to a problem is not the same as having the answers. 

    I now have many thousands of articles in my Evernote. There are probably over a hundred of them about better “prompt engineering” or using “prompting techniques better”… but I can’t pretend that each article has made me better at those things. I have gotten better at thin-slicing and knowing what I want to store to improve the quality of the raw material I search for.

    So now, I’m exploring how to maintain a balance. I still want to leverage AI’s value, while reintroducing a layer of slowness and reflection into the process. Maybe that means manually summarizing some articles. Maybe it means pausing to journal about what I’ve read, or discussing it with someone. The goal is not to abandon the efficiency — but to ensure that efficiency doesn’t come at the cost of depth.

    The priority is making sure I’m optimizing on the right thing. It’s not progress if you’re taking steps in the wrong direction.

    Let me know what you think about that … or what you are doing that you think is worth sharing.

    Onwards!

  • Global Happiness Levels in 2025

    Are you Happy?

    What does that mean? How do you define it? And how do you measure it?

    Happiness is a surprisingly complex concept comprised of conditions that highlight positive emotions over negative ones. And upon a bit of reflection, happiness is bolstered by the support of comfort, freedom, wealth, and other things people aspire to experience. 

    Regardless of how hard it is to describe (let alone quantify) … humans strive for happiness.

    Likewise, it is hard to imagine a well-balanced and objective "Happiness Report" because so much of the data required to compile it seems subjective and requires self-reporting. 

    Nonetheless, the World Happiness Report takes an annual look at quantifiable factors (like health, wealth, GDP, and life expectancy) and more intangible factors (like social support, generosity, emotions, and perceptions of local government and businesses). Below is an infographic highlighting the World Happiness Report data for 2025.

    Screenshot 2025-05-11 at 9.59.45 PM

    World Happiness Report via Gallup

    Click here to see a dashboard with the raw worldwide data.

    I last shared this concept in 2022. At the time, we were still seeing the ramifications of COVID-19 on happiness levels. As you might expect, the pandemic caused a significant increase in negative emotions reported. Specifically, there were substantial increases in reports of worry and sadness across the ninety-five countries surveyed. The decline in mental health was higher in groups prone to disenfranchisement or other particular challenges – e.g., women, young people, and poorer people. 

    Ultimately, happiness scores are relatively resilient and stable, and humanity persevered in the face of economic insecurity, anxiety, and more.

    While scores in North America have dropped slightly, there are positive trends. 

    The 2025 Report

    In the 2025 report, one of the key focuses was an increase in pessimism about the benevolence of others. There seems to be a rise in distrust that doesn't match the actual statistics on acts of goodwill. For example, when researchers dropped wallets in the street, the proportion of returned wallets was far higher than people expected. 

    Unfortunately, our well-being depends on our perception of others' benevolence, as well as their actual benevolence. 

    Since we underestimate the kindness of others, our well-being can be improved by seeing acts of true benevolence. In fact, the people who benefit most from perceived benevolence are those who are the least happy. 

    "Benevolence" increased during COVID-19 in every region of the world. People needed more help, and others responded. Even better, that bump in benevolence has been sustained, with benevolent acts still being about 10% higher than their pre-pandemic levels. 

    Another thing that makes a big difference in happiness levels worldwide is a sense of community. People who eat with others are happier, and this effect holds across many other variables. People who live with others are also happier (even when it's family). 

    The opposite of happiness is despair, and deaths of despair (suicide and substance abuse) are falling in the majority of countries. Deaths of despair are significantly lower in countries where more people are donating, volunteering, or helping strangers. 

    Yet, Americans are increasingly eating alone and living alone, and are one of the few countries experiencing an increase in deaths of despair (especially among the younger population). In 2023, 19% of young adults across the world reported having no one they could count on for social support. This is a 39% increase compared to 2006. 

    Takeaways

    In the U.S., and a few other regions, the decline in happiness and social trust points to the rise in political polarisation and distrust of "the system". As life satisfaction lowers, there is a rise in anti-system votes.

    Among unhappy people attracted by the extremes of the political spectrum, low-trust people are more often found on the far right, whereas high-trust people are more inclined to vote for the far left.

    Despite that, when we feel like we're part of a community, spend time with others, and perform prosocial behavior, we significantly increase perceived personal benefit and reported happiness levels.

    Do you think we can return to previous levels of trust in the States? I remember when it felt like both parties understood that the other side was looking to improve the country, just with different methods. 

    On a broader note, while we have negative trends in the U.S., the decrease is lower than you might expect. The relative balance demonstrated in the face of such adversity may point towards the existence of a hedonic treadmill - or a set-point of happiness.

    Regardless of the circumstances, people can focus on what they choose, define what it means to them, and choose their actions.

    Remember, throughout history, things have gotten better. There are dips here and there, but like the S&P 500 … we always rally eventually. 

    Onwards!