Money Can Buy Happiness
"Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”. Notice that "happiness" is within the range of "contentment" to "intense joy." Every single thing in the world which brings contentment or joy costs money and therefore, it is money which brings happiness.
Nothing can be yours without money being spent either by the person experiencing this happiness, or by others spending money so that they can be happy. For example, even people who are contented with sustenance and covering will realize that both food and shelter costs money. Turn on the news and watch people dying of starvation, do they look happy? They appear to be quite sad. When the worms of hungry brought on by extreme poverty are eating at people, they tend to smile less. I certainly don't see them laughing and see their bones coming out of their chests. How many homeless people do we find acting extremely overjoyed? Not many. You can't be truly happy if you are constantly worried about what to eat and where to shelter or what to wear and if you can't afford such things it is natural to worry.
People say a very rich people can be unhappy, but surely it wasn't having money that made the rich people unhappy because thousands of quite happy individuals are rich, even amongst the very religious. Just because money brings happiness doesn't entail that once you have money there will not also be sources of sadness and misery that can rob us of that happiness. I think we need to establish the fact that there is more than one source of happiness, so let's not get into this nonsense about happiness coming only from God or religion. For example marriage is a source of happiness and many husbands can testify that their wives make them happy but this doesn't mean they can't get sick and that sickness can burden the family and bring a measure of sadness. If this rich guy used his money wisely, it would not become a source of unhappiness for him,
Nothing can be yours without money being spent either by the person experiencing this happiness, or by others spending money so that they can be happy. For example, even people who are contented with sustenance and covering will realize that both food and shelter costs money. Turn on the news and watch people dying of starvation, do they look happy? They appear to be quite sad. When the worms of hungry brought on by extreme poverty are eating at people, they tend to smile less. I certainly don't see them laughing and see their bones coming out of their chests. How many homeless people do we find acting extremely overjoyed? Not many. You can't be truly happy if you are constantly worried about what to eat and where to shelter or what to wear and if you can't afford such things it is natural to worry.
People say a very rich people can be unhappy, but surely it wasn't having money that made the rich people unhappy because thousands of quite happy individuals are rich, even amongst the very religious. Just because money brings happiness doesn't entail that once you have money there will not also be sources of sadness and misery that can rob us of that happiness. I think we need to establish the fact that there is more than one source of happiness, so let's not get into this nonsense about happiness coming only from God or religion. For example marriage is a source of happiness and many husbands can testify that their wives make them happy but this doesn't mean they can't get sick and that sickness can burden the family and bring a measure of sadness. If this rich guy used his money wisely, it would not become a source of unhappiness for him,