Can money buy happiness?
Just imagine that you are driving the latest Lamborghini to your own cottage. You are entering your yard where you have a fashionable swimming pool with Jacuzzi. You change your clothes and go to the pool where you see that the most beautiful models in the world are waiting for you. And near your house you have your own plane to fly anywhere whenever you want. You are sitting next to your Jacuzzi and drinking a cocktail which price is more than annual budget of Kazakhstan and nothing brightens your life now. At this moment you philosophically look afield ignoring everything around you. And you whisper “Happiness is not money”.
Is it possible to buy happiness for money? All of us have long been accustomed to the saying «Happiness is not money” but we often do not think whether this is really so. Studies show that money plays not the least role in making a person feel happy. And happiness can be brought to some extent.
Money helps to get emotions that lead to positive results. For example, new clothes often make us more self-confident. Acquired self-confidence can help you get the desired job, conclude a profitable deal or just add some freedom to your gait. For money, you can buy fresh impressions and equipment for your favorite hobby. A person develops creatively and achieves balance. For those who need stability, the presence of money in a bank account helps to gain confidence in the future, because they can cover unforeseen expenses, such as car repairs or emergency medical care for a family member.
Some people find happiness in possessing latest IPhone, wearing fashionable clothes, driving an expensive car or living in a nice house. It makes them happy.
Some people longed for fame, notoriety and some sort of recognition. And it’s no surprise. There was, and still is, a cultural notion that personal value and worth are the result of one’s accomplishments.
So can money buy happiness? To answer these questions let’s find out what is happiness. Happiness is a complex emotion that depends on ones’ personality, his life experience and his beliefs. For example, someone needs only a good job, a good relationships or a good health. But having a lot of money is on the first place for the majority. Money itself never leads you to happiness although it gives comfort, security and possession of a certain items.
Of course, a lot of things can be bought for money. Some people earn a lot of money. But these people, perhaps, do not have the most important thing which you cannot buy for money. For example, a person may not have grandmothers, grandfathers, family, friendship, love, laughter, pity, cordiality. And this is the most important thing in life! If a person has few relatives, then very few people can support in a hard time. If a person does not have a family, then it is hard for him to live, because there is no support and love. If there is no friendship, you are lonely. If there is no love for anyone or for anything, then you are a heartless person. If you do not have laughter, then you will be sad all the time.
For now, imagine yourself in the same Jacuzzi but now you can’t take a glass of cocktail with your hands and even can’t move at all. You have health problems that modern science can’t deal with. You have got a lot of money but it won’t let you feel healthy. Will it be happiness for you? Those expensive cocktails, personal plane or fancy car will not make you feel better.
Everyone probably knows what money is and why they are needed. If you say simply, the money – this is a bill for which you can buy a lot, but not all. And what cannot be bought for money?
I know that you cannot buy health exactly. If a person has an incurable disease, then money will not help either. You cannot buy knowledge, skills – which we must acquire during life; they cannot be bought and put into the head. You cannot buy the love of family. Friendship and sincere attitude are also not sold. You cannot say: “I will give you money, and you will be my friend.” And priceless time, it is also cannot be bought for any money.
Or another situation, imagine that you have everything above: health, wealth, fame but you are hopelessly ill and you can’t do anything about it. There are a lot of situations in life. And in any situation, the things that we want, things that make us happy always are changed.
We must admit that money can give us a lot of pecuniary or non-pecuniary things that can lead us to happiness. But we can’t just buy true happiness. We can buy temporary satisfaction but not happiness. We need to know what makes us happy.
I believe that for money you cannot buy friendship, love, happiness, joy, respect, honor, dignity, faith in anything, talent and other human feelings. You cannot buy health, because it all from nature, you cannot buy for money natural phenomena and much more. This topic can be developed endlessly …
So can we buy happiness? Yes and no. Life is complicated. It has its up and downs. And such thing as happiness is not absolutely permanent. It depends on situations in everyone’s life.
By Dauren
Happiness is a difficult word to define. Everyone possesses different perspectives of happiness from their own experience. Some people would say money can buy you happiness because they presume money could give them power, while others disagree. From my own perspective, I personally believe money could not buy eternal joy into your life. Money is a basic need in our lives to purchase our everyday necessitates. Having a lot of money could be used to purchase fancy and expensive goods, but the satisfaction would only be limited. Furthermore, money cannot buy you the emotions you get from love and affection. Money is desired by everyone, but it can’t buy you everything, for example: general knowledge or a deceased loved one and the memories made with them. Happiness is not determined by what your bank account could afford, it is simply appreciating the small things life brings you.
Money can’t buy you happiness even though it is thought to be one of the most powerful things in life because everyone desires money, but yet money can’t even buy you life-long friends or a loveable family. Love is a feeling of deep affection; it is an incredibly powerful word. Love is an emotion in life that cannot be tarnished because when you love someone, there is no denying it. Friends and family can bring joy into your life that money could not buy. When you have a genuine friendship, they’ll stay by your side no matter what, but if you choose to buy your friendship with money; they’ll leave you once you have lost your valuable possessions. Those who are less fortunate live in smaller homes with fewer possessions, but some of them are more satisfied with their life than the wealthy because their love can still be found in their warm hearts. Bill Gates once said “when you have money in your hand, you forget who you are. But when you don’t have money in your hand, everyone forgets who you are.” According to a study done by Huffington Post, people with more money tend to be more well respected than those with less. However, you do not need money in order to be well respected.
Money can only be used to purchase material goods such as shelter, a bed and many more items. Many people presume that money can be used to purchase everything in this world, but what it can’t buy you is life lessons and knowledge. You can use all the money you want to get a good education and become an amazing musician or something, but you won’t learn how to deal with the real world. In reality, you’ll have to deal with many types of complicated obstacles and money won’t be able to help. Another example of what money cannot buy or bring back is a deceased loved one and the memories made with them. If you break something, money could bring it back. If you lose a valuable item, money could bring that back too. However, no matter how much money you have, you could never bring back someone you loved who passed away. Money cannot buy you everything you want in life.
Money is a basic desire in our lives that could be used to purchase everyday necessitates. Having a lot of money can be used to purchase fancy goods, but the satisfaction would only be limited. Many people believe buying life experiences and materials are worth spending money on. However, according to Ryan Howell, a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, neither life experiences nor material items will make shoppers happier than they were before purchasing something. Even with lottery tickets, everyone desires to win big so they could quit their job, live in a lovely mansion and spend the rest of their days doing whatever they would like. However, according to a study made by BBC News, people who had big wins on the lottery were extremely excited to hear that they have won a large amount of cash but later on they ended up no happier than they were before.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that money could not bring eternal joy into your life because purchasing materials will only result in a limited amount of satisfaction, it cannot buy you the emotions you get from love and affection and it also cannot purchase everything in world such as general knowledge and a deceased loved one or the memories made with them. Money can make life easier, for example, you can buy a fancy car to get you to places faster but an average car will achieve the same thing, however, it may not be as pretty or fast but it still achieves its ultimate goal; to get you to your destination. Money can also buy expensive goods but they will only provide a limited amount of happiness because after its novelty passes you would have to buy something better. In the long run, money cannot buy happiness because the most valuable things in life cannot be bought with money; they have to be earned such as friendship and love.
By Deesa Patel
