How to Money · Wednesday, September 2, 2026
Wes Moss emphasizes the importance of developing 'hobbies on steroids' or 'core pursuits' as a key component of a happy retirement, suggesting that happy retirees engage in five or more such activities for approximately 20 hours a week. He differentiates this from passive hobbies, noting that these pursuits should be actively engaged and often involve social interaction or adventure, contributing significantly to a retiree's sense of purpose and fulfillment.
“The happy retirey group where you're getting happiness alpha is when you have five or more of these hobbies on steroids, which is a lot more than my earlier research. So the number four, it was three point six, it was three point six, and then it was one point nine for the unhappy group. Like, that's that's pretty that's that this new data is very different. It's five plus, which is a lot of core pursuits.”
“So the happy retiree group with the alpha, they're spending and I'm rounding here close to twenty hours a week versus the unhappy group spending more like thirteen. You do the math. Over the course of a year, it's two hundred and eighty hours of creating your purpose and spending that time relative to the unhappy camp.”
“So it is about being open, being creative, being exploratory, being adventurous around and by the way, adventure corp pursuits big happiness alpha for the happy group versus the unhappy group. That I categorize the different ends of corpor suits. Adventures is a big key traveling. I categorize to anything travel oriented, exploratory, hunting, fishing. That's I categorize that as an adventure related corp pursuits.”