Welcome to the online home of Michael Tefula, trainee accountant, writer, and musician.
“But just as the human body didn’t evolve to deal well with today’s easy access to abundant fat and sugars, and will crave an extra cheeseburger when it shouldn’t, the human mind, apparently, didn’t evolve to deal with excess money, and will desire more long after wealth has become a burden rather than a comfort. [...]
I recently had a blog post published over at Inspiring Interns. This is an organisation that helps match businesses with bright graduates. Check out the intro and the full article after the break. When I was at university I had three major interests outside of academia: (1) music production, (2) the internet and (3) writing. [...]
While finishing off the fourth chapter of my book (in which I explore the links between happiness and grades) I came across an interesting academic paper written by Nattavudh Powdthavee, a socio-economist at the University of York. The paper is titled, ‘Putting a Price Tag on Friends, Relatives and Neighbours’ and in it, Powdthavee uses a method [...]
My favorite positive psychology study is one published in Science by Liz Dunn and her colleagues at UBC. They found that people who spent their salary bonuses on other people were happier than those who spent it on themselves. And they did an experiment in which they gave students five dollars or twenty dollars and [...]
We use the word “need” much too casually. The only things we truly need are the basics of physical survival—air, water, food, clothing, shelter—and everyone reading this book already has these. We also need the basics of intellectual and emotional well-being—love, family, friendship, satisfying work, hobbies, faith—each reader has his or her own list here. [...]
Finally, graduation is upon us. In last three years we have slaved away and worked relentlessly to achieve one key goal: to graduate. But now that University is over, a whole new world opens up. How are we to direct our lives from here on; especially after spending 17+ years in an education system, which [...]
Some people think that money is not important for happiness, or even that rich people are not happy. On the contrary, research has shown that people who are well-off financially are happier than poor people (Diener & Biwas-Diener, 2002; Diener & Seligman, 2004). It has usually been assumed that financial success brings happiness. But it is also true that [...]