Does Money Buy Happiness Does money buy happiness is a question that can have multiple answers. An individual’s happiness can be defined as their state of mind, level of contentment, or result of satisfied experience. Does the degree of wealth an individual accrue relate to their level of happiness? If this is true, why is there depression, suicide, substance abuse, or divorce among wealthy individuals? How does one determine when they have reached the appropriate amount of valuable material possessions to call themselves wealthy?
Throughout the globe, there are varying degrees of wealth and happiness. By exploring the topics associated with a person’s financial freedom, ability to acquire scare goods, and lack of restrictions of time, one can identify the relationship between happiness and money. As human beings we are only allotted a certain amount of time, therefore time is a scarce commodity in life. Time cannot be re-created, extended, or altered in any form. Time is a constant, twenty four hours in a day, seven days in a week, and approximately fifty-two weeks in a year.
No monetary figure or human being can alter time. In contrast, an individual’s wealth can be identified as a variable, fluctuating throughout the span of their lifetime. People experience varying levels of wealth, each person is born into a particular financial class structure and achieve different levels throughout their working career. Each individual has the choice to cherish their time and make opportunities to use their time wisely. As stated earlier, happiness is a state of mind, you can choose to be motivated and optimistic while using your time wisely or let time pass you by.
The same holds true for wealth. An individual can pursue higher education, implement strong personal work ethics, thus improving their job potential and increasing their personal wealth. However, in the formula of life, time will always be a constant where wealth will be a variable, the two are independent of each other. Unfortunately, there is no formula to guarantee wealth in one’s lifetime. There are infinite opportunities that individuals must decide whether to pursue in order to take advantage of certain situations. The key o wealth and happiness is your ability to balance the gains and the losses, determine what is truly important in your life, and find a balance. In determining one’s medium , the decision must be made what risks are feasible in order to attain the particular components that will achieve your happiness. These components could be basic needs of shelter and security, social needs of a family and friendships, or obtainment of materialistic desires. The key is to find a balance on what is truly needed and to acknowledge the accomplishment of achieving your desired goals.
This task of balance takes places hourly, daily, and weekly. Life requires one to continually adapt and refocus on their priorities and goals. Every decision in life has repercussions, causing us to continually analyze what path we want to proceed on, and every decision changes affects our path. The choice is ours, to proceed with a positive attitude or to be pessimistic and give up. If our decisions are not satisfying or simply are not working we can reconsider and change accordingly.
Therefore, it is imperative to use time wisely, cherish every minute, make a difference that will positively impact your life. Obviously money and the accumulation of wealth is very important part of our society. There is an over abundance of focus on the desire to obtain materialistic goods and reach a status quo. The media provides us a daily reminder of what money can buy and the pros and cons of wealth. Advertisements of homes, luxury goods, the sources are endless. It appears that we focus on what we do not have instead of taking pride in what we have already achieved.
A vast majority of people spend their entire life trying to figure out how to acquire more money, never been satisfied with what they have, always wanting more. The downfall is that a smaller portion of those people realize that money is only a portion of the equation of obtaining happiness in life. Money is essential to purchase food, secure a home, buy clothes, acquire medical necessities, and obtain an education in life. However, there are other components that need to be acquired to experience true freedom and happiness.
Contentment in life cannot be achieved with money alone, money is only a medium of exchange for things that we need and desire. Health cannot be bought. When an individual has accumulated a lot of money, it is simply that, a lot of money. If someone were to have lots of money, but was in poor health, could they really be happy? Or if someone created a great sum of wealth but no time to enjoy the many benefits that is can provide would happiness be possible? One of the main reasons that so few of us are even aware that financial freedom is obtainable without hard work is due in part to what we have been taught.
The vast majority of us have been taught to work long and hard or that it takes hard work to make money. Due to our traditionally established beliefs, we have become blind to the ability to look elsewhere for happiness. We as a society have far too much to do to take the time to do the necessary life balancing internal work that can provide much greater and far more pleasing external rewards than our busy schedules can ever dictate. Financial freedom is not achieved by hard work alone, you must be able to internalize and establish the belief that you can and will be financially free.
Your physical actions towards this goal are only an effect. If you can become the thought itself or its end result, and evoke those emotions that must be experienced to posses’ financial freedom as if you already possessed it. Your thoughts and beliefs about money and accumulating it, or the emotions that must be evoked are the real underlying cause for financial freedom, not hard work. No matter how much money is given to anyone or how much they have accumulated, until we have the ability to become conscious of internalizing true happiness.
Money will continue to be a problem in your life, and financial freedom will forever be wishful thinking. Amazingly enough all around the world money is perceived to have value. When actually its only paper, it has no value whatsoever, only the value of the paper itself. Only the things we exchange for money have value to you. Money itself cannot evoke emotion however financial freedom and the internal perception that money can allow you to do can stir up some significant emotions.
The feeling that we’ve freed ourselves from being a slave to money and the things that can be done with it for you or others is breaching on financial freedom. The aim of our lives should not revolve around the accumulation of possessions or wealth. Our focus should be contentment with what we have and appreciate the simplicities’ in life. In conclusion money is extremely important in our society, and a lack there of can cause a multitude of negative side effects. Everything in life, happiness, financial freedom, including money has a source and its note due to struggle and hard work.
Where we are as individuals in relation to money is solely based on beliefs that we hold and choices we’ve made in the past. Happiness is useless unless we decide to apply in our lives. It is not money itself that we are after, but what money can allow us to do and the financial freedom that it can provide. It is up to us as individuals to decide to become conscious of our own happiness. Our choices determine our future actions, and our future results will ultimately determine how we experience and live life. Financial Freedom Scare goods Time restrictions Conclusion
