That's men for you: 'I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, more money, that he may get still more. He considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy; for it was wisely said that there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them."
I was reminded of that quote from Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, by a piece of research, which has just been published in Science magazine.
It concerns money and happiness, and it makes me wonder if we are all mad. As you know, we are living in a booming little country and many of us are frantically trying to make money to pay the bills - or just trying to make money. Behind all this activity is the assumption that our lives will, somehow, be better if we have more money.
But the report in Science confirms what Walton knew back in the 17th century. This is that an increase in income does not bring significant increases in happiness.
According to the article, US government statistics show that men who make more than $100,000 a year spend about 20 per cent of their time in leisure activities. But men who make less than $20,000 a year get to spend about 35 per cent of their time on leisure activities. The figures for women are similar.
Previous research, done in the 1990s, shows that leisure is, perhaps, the main source of happiness. Among the leisure activities, the ones that seem to bring greatest satisfaction are those which involve activities, meeting challenges and so on.
But "passive leisure" seems to bring happiness as well. For example, soap operas provide us with imaginary people to whom we can relate.
And leisure activities often involve the company of friends, which also seems to make us happier. Even hours spent on bebo.com and myspace.com (teens and tweens consider it obligatory to be on both at the same time) involve interaction with people.
But if people on higher incomes spend much less time in leisure than people on lower incomes, then an important source of happiness is closed off to people on higher incomes.
Bureau of Labour statistics in the United States show that people with higher incomes spend more of their time on "obligatory" activities such as working, shopping and childcare. The researchers found that these activities were linked with higher tension and stress. I bet a lot of Irish people can relate to that in a big way.
In their book, The Psychology of Money, Adrian Furnham and Michael Argyle point out that "lack of money can limit leisure, but much leisure is free or nearly so - church, evening classes, walking, the public library and voluntary work".
And yet there are many, many people for whom these sources of leisure are unattainable. They just do not have the time for them. We are money rich and time poor.
But why doesn't more money make us happier? One key reason, according to Furnham and Argyle, is that once we have that extra money we just get used to it. Before we get our hands on the money we tell ourselves how wonderful it would be to have all that extra dosh.
But once we've got it, well, we've got it and the buzz disappears. What's more, we have a habit of comparing ourselves with people who have more money - and no matter how much you have there will always be someone who has more.
What makes us humans so maddening is that I know all this stuff but I'm still going to go on buying Lotto tickets. And I'm still going to try to earn more money this year than I earned last year. Illogical and irrational? Absolutely, no question about it.
Will I ever give up the illusory pursuit of happiness through income and enjoy the simple life instead?
Of course. Just as soon as I can afford it.
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.