Can money buy happiness?

Money makes the world go around. Money can take you places that you could never imagine. Growing up in my household I was considered a spoiled brat. My mother gave my sister and I any thing our heart desired. My cousins always wanted to come over our house because we had any toy you could think of. But as I got older I realized that material things did not make me happy. That’s why I believe money cannot buy you happiness.

People go through life being able to buy any thing their heart desires. Take for example rich movie stars that resort to drugs because they are not happy after they are able to obtain anything they want financially. Money is just a temporary state of happiness, eventually the material items will depreciate and become meaningless. Happiness comes within and cannot be purchased, people go through life wishing of all the material things they can have but once they receive them they discover that material possessions don’t make them happy. In every household we are taught that you have to have certain material possessions in order to consider yourself successful to be happy, but the older and mature you become you see and understand for yourself that happiness is within.

I was watching television one night and I saw a family on a talk show that was fighting over an inheritance. It was sad to see because they went to the extreme by turning their backs on one another for the sake of money which in their minds was happiness. Money can make you do deviant things, it can turn love one against each other and not care for anything else but the false happiness which is money. By rules of economy, we get money for an exchange of the work we do or services we give. In return, money gives us the possibility to get things or do things. These things may bring pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. Therefore, we can purchase opportunities and material things that bring about pleasurable experiences, but happiness is something more than this.

What is happiness and all that it brings? Happiness is both a state of mind and a way of life. Some would call it a spiritual journey; others may refer to it as a balance of nature. I have even heard someone say that happiness comes when you find yourself. These are all things that money cannot purchase. I have heard of many people being accused of buying their way into heaven. We can usually tell when someone is happy or unhappy. Happy people are good to be around and bring a sense of security and benefit to the relationship. These are the best things in life, and they cannot be purchased with money.

So you can see many people try to find happiness through pleasurable things, and because you can trade for these pleasurable experiences through various means, people think that they can purchase happiness. The possibilities that come through wealth may bring pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. Happiness is a journey that includes both a state of mind and a way of life. Out of this journey come all the things that money cannot purchase – the best things in life.