How to Achieve Happiness
Essay # 3
Happiness.
There is a saying that states that “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” and most of the time, the response to that is: “Yeah right, whatever, keep on dreaming” or “Yes sure, but you have to admit that it helps when you have some”. Indeed, when we think about money, we either start daydreaming about the projects we will realize once we have it in our hands or we end up having nightmares about what we will be losing once it has vanished. So for sure, the common answer would be that money is definitively necessary to be happy. However, recent studies, as author Richard O’Connor (2008) claims, show that Americans with higher wages still show no sign of being happier or even worse become sadder then what they were before. If money was supposed to be the source of happiness, why do we still not stay happy when we have some? It is probably because money just represents a small part of happiness and if this is the case then that must mean that other factors are much more important in making us truly happy. As said before, money is a source of happiness for many people or at least that is what they think. It is true that when you lack money, you usually cannot take proper care of yourself. So in this particular moment, you feel like money is a major need. Indeed, like author R. O’Connor (2008) said there are two situations where money is a definite source of happiness: firstly when it “lifts you out of poverty” and secondly when it “satisfies a basic need” (p.42). In both of these cases, money is playing a role in people’s happiness because it helps them take care of themselves. In other words, as author Michael Argyle (2008) states by the use of “Marlow’s Theory (1954),”—showed in the pyramidal graph below-- stating that once our basic needs were completed, we move on to higher needs that need to be accomplished in order to gain “social acceptance, self-esteem and finally self-actualization” (P.142). Put
Happiness.
There is a saying that states that “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” and most of the time, the response to that is: “Yeah right, whatever, keep on dreaming” or “Yes sure, but you have to admit that it helps when you have some”. Indeed, when we think about money, we either start daydreaming about the projects we will realize once we have it in our hands or we end up having nightmares about what we will be losing once it has vanished. So for sure, the common answer would be that money is definitively necessary to be happy. However, recent studies, as author Richard O’Connor (2008) claims, show that Americans with higher wages still show no sign of being happier or even worse become sadder then what they were before. If money was supposed to be the source of happiness, why do we still not stay happy when we have some? It is probably because money just represents a small part of happiness and if this is the case then that must mean that other factors are much more important in making us truly happy. As said before, money is a source of happiness for many people or at least that is what they think. It is true that when you lack money, you usually cannot take proper care of yourself. So in this particular moment, you feel like money is a major need. Indeed, like author R. O’Connor (2008) said there are two situations where money is a definite source of happiness: firstly when it “lifts you out of poverty” and secondly when it “satisfies a basic need” (p.42). In both of these cases, money is playing a role in people’s happiness because it helps them take care of themselves. In other words, as author Michael Argyle (2008) states by the use of “Marlow’s Theory (1954),”—showed in the pyramidal graph below-- stating that once our basic needs were completed, we move on to higher needs that need to be accomplished in order to gain “social acceptance, self-esteem and finally self-actualization” (P.142). Put