Can Money Buy Happiness?
posted by Amos on Monday, October 15th 2007
Newsweek tackles the question, “Does Money Buy Happiness?.” The answer is, once your basic needs are meet, not really. Here’s a quote from the article, “differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work.” I think people know this, at least intuitively, but there’s the matter of these hegemonic systems that define and control social behaviors. Systems like capitalism, the advertising industry, government, often in collusion with corporations. I don’t think these systems are inherently bad, or wrong, but given what we’re all trying to do, which is be happy, ultimately, I think they are broken, or faulty, or missing the mark, however you want to put it. Setting aside those who don’t have their basic needs meet, the vast majority of folks do not need to get more, they need to be more. Most of our social, political, and economic systems focus on temporal matters, and define happiness in terms of what one has, and not what one is being. You know, you feel like a miserable shit, but as long as you can vote and buy you’re doing all right. There’s a disconnect.
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david
October 15th 2007 - 2:17pm
Hmm… yes and no. It’s awful hard for anyone, even people who devote their lives to it, to make someone else happy. However, the government can make sure my rights aren’t being violated, and that I can express my opinion freely (voting, protest, etc). Similarly, your job cannot make you happy, but it can–which is not at all to say does–provide you the materials needed for happiness. That no one else is actively making me or you or anyone happy isn’t a problem, it’s just the way things are.
Phill
October 15th 2007 - 8:23pm
Funny you should mention this, my friend and I were talking about our shared frugality the other day and this came up along the way.
I have always been determined that I wouldn’t be ruled by the need for money. This came in part from a pretty poor upbringing, where I didn’t really have the luxury of throwing cash around, and in part from a general observation that having a lot of money meant you didn’t really have a lot of time to enjoy it. This observation has been confirmed again and again and again through my life. Mainly in the cases of those that are in the thrall of power jobs. They have a shitload of money, but also a shitload of work, which corresponds to a shitload of stress. Maybe they figure that by buying all the stuff they do they’ll be justifying the stress they have to endure. It’s a cycle not easily broken, especially when they feel they have something invested in the company (i.e. years of employment or contacts).
I applaud the statement, “Setting aside those who don’t have their basic needs meet, the vast majority of folks do not need to get more, they need to be more.” That’s perfect. When people have a lot of money, they tend to look at their immediate surroundings and modify them. Car, house, clothes, etc. This is instead of seeing what they could do outside their comfort zone. Take an art class, maybe dancing lessons. Spend a weekend writing bad poetry and then laughing about it with a friend. Write letters to all your friends, no matter if they live around the corner or across the ocean. These are activities that are easy, free, and ultimately enjoyable, but somehow get supplanted with the desire to ‘have’ something at the end of your day. We spend the precious and limited currency of our time here on Earth adorning our walls, our garages, our cabinets, rather than our souls, or our minds.
Eunjin
October 18th 2007 - 1:24am
Truly inspiring and makes you think. Love the post.