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You cannot be happy, healthy and wealthy all at the same time.  For a borderline self-help guru that statement is akin to a priest saying that God’s BFF is most likely the Tooth Fairy.  Sadly, I’m convinced it is the truth.  Unless you were born with super genes, a trust fund and inhuman optimism, it’s highly unlikely that you will experience all 3 of modern life’s greatest gifts simultaneously.  Nine times out of 10, you’ll have to choose between health or wealth or happiness.

The other day, a friend of mine was explaining the dilemma he and his wife faced about what food to eat.  On the one hand, they wanted to be healthy and eat mostly organic foods.  They also wanted to be friendly to the environment which meant eating local foods.  On the other hand, they also wanted to enjoy their food and didn’t want to spend a king’s ransom on groceries every month.  His epiphany was that this list of criteria had created an extremely complex, sanity-testing decision between physical health, financial responsibility and personal satisfaction every single time his or his wife’s tummy happened to growl.

To resolve the dilemma he concluded (and I swear I didn’t pay him to say this) that he needed to figure out the Decision Pulse for his diet decisions. Before he lost his mind, he needed to clarify which of those noble objectives would be numero uno every time he opened the fridge or went to the grocery store.

Few of us recognize that those daily diet decisions use up precious mental resources that we rely on to make bigger life decisions about our career and our relationships.  My friend’s dilemma reminded me of a really fascinating article from Scientific American outlining just how much brain power these decisions cost us.  In one poignant example, the article points out that the mental resources you spend on resisting the urge to eat a cookie can very easily cause you to make a poor career decision later in the day, because your brain is just too tuckered out.

So, what to do?

Well, there is a solution that is reminiscent of the one psychologist Barry Schwartz offered in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less when he says that they key is not to apply new time, money or stress management techniques that help you get more of what you want.  Instead, the key is to just start wanting less.  More specifically, I recommend identifying what you want most and then kissing goodbye to your lower priority wants.  We have to ditch the flawed notion that we can skip cheerily through an organic meadow feasting on tantalizing confections all the while drawing from an endless supply of cash and smiles.

I know certainly isn’t what most people do hear from advertisers and gurus who profit by selling you the dream that “you can have it all–health, wealth and happiness!”  And mine is sort of a negative Nancy view.  So, you be the judge. Try getting specific about what you really want and forsaking the things you don’t want as much, and just see how it treats you.  Who knows?  You might just wind up happier, healthier or wealthier.

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