Nice Take on Money & Being Happy

Money and being happy By Melanie T. Lim

I HAVE yet to meet a person who does not aspire to be happy. But we take different roads to find happiness. Many of us believe the amount of money we amass during our lifetime will be directly proportional to the amount of happiness we find.

Why, after all, would we work so hard each day, for more and more money if not for the fact that we believe more money will bring us greater happiness? And yet the fact remains that if money were the true barometer for happiness, we would not be able to find a single happy person among the poor and a single unhappy person among the rich.

Money can buy us a comfortable life but it can’t buy us love or loyalty. Money can buy us a new face or body but it can’t bring a lover back. Money can buy us the wedding of the decade but it can’t give us a great marriage. Money can rid us of a lot of pain, discomfort and inconvenience but it can’t rid us of guilt, anger and heartbreak. Money can solve a lot of problems but it can’t give us peace, meaning, contentment.

The reality is that some of the happiest people in the world are not the richest and some of the richest people in the world are not the happiest.

The moral of the story is not that we shouldn’t aspire to be rich—but that we should understand that becoming rich will not necessarily make us happy. In greater likelihood, more money will only make us worry more and worse, want more.

It is not wrong to want a comfortable life. But it is wrong to lead an extravagant one when so many others wallow in extreme poverty. It is not wrong to want more money. But it is wrong to be consumed by it. It is not wrong to aspire for more in life. But it is wrong to acquire more in life and not do more for those who have so much less.

Most of us tend to see money simply as a means to buy material possessions we believe can ultimately make us happy. But how many houses, cars, vacations, golf clubs, gym memberships, clothes, bags and shoes will we have to buy to find the happiness we seek?

What many of us fail to understand is that the “real value” of money does not lie in the material possessions it can buy us. The real value of money lies in the choices it can bring us.

Happiness is not determined by the amount of money we amass in our lifetime. Happiness is determined by the wisdom of the decisions we make with the money we amass in our lifetime. We can choose to be remembered for our money. But we can also choose to be remembered for what we chose to do with our money. Ultimately, it’s not “how much we have” but “what we do with what we have” that will make us happy.