{"id":91029,"date":"2026-03-29T07:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=91029"},"modified":"2026-03-29T07:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:03:15","slug":"the-five-things-that-really-matter-in-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/03\/29\/the-five-things-that-really-matter-in-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The five things that really matter in life"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have just published this short video on YouTube<\/a> and many other channels.<\/p>\n

This is the transcript:<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019re told that success in life means having more money, but that\u2019s a very narrow definition.<\/p>\n

Many with wealth still lack fulfilment.<\/p>\n

So what does success really look like? It\u2019s far broader than accumulation. Real success in life revolves around five things.<\/p>\n

The first is security, being able to meet basic needs reliably.<\/p>\n

The second is having a purpose provided by meaningful work or activity, and lots of us crave for that and are denied it by the current economic system.<\/p>\n

The third is relationships, whether that\u2019s with family, friends, a loved one, whatever. We need strong human connections.<\/p>\n

The fourth is contribution, making a difference to others. We like to think, or we are told to think by economics, that we live in little bubbles of isolation, but that\u2019s not how we really live. We do want to make a contribution.<\/p>\n

And the fifth thing is autonomy. We do want freedom to shape our own lives, and that does not contradict with what I just said about contribution. The two run simultaneously and in tension, and that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

What this means for the economy is this: wealth alone does not deliver these outcomes.<\/p>\n

Systems can generate income, but undermine well-being, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing in the world right now.<\/p>\n

Work can lack purpose and security, and vast numbers of people know all about that every day.<\/p>\n

The result is that inequality can damage relationships, and autonomy and economic design matters.<\/p>\n

Success should then be measured in terms of lived experience.<\/p>\n

Economies should support the five conditions I\u2019ve mentioned. They don\u2019t. They reward accumulation for its own sake, and that\u2019s all our government, our economists, our commentators, and everybody else concentrates on.<\/p>\n

Policy should reflect human needs, and not just markets, is my point. That is what a successful economy should deliver. We\u2019re a long way from that right now. We need to rethink our economics for success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have just published this short video on YouTube and many other channels. This is the transcript: We\u2019re told that success in life means having
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,35,16,235,223],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-politics-for-people","category-politics-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91204,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91029\/revisions\/91204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}