Happiness is a state of MIND, not a commodity. You DECIDE to be happy or not, no THING makes you happy, at least not genuinely happy. Oh, we all get a thrill from what we can do with money, but it''s fleeting, and then we''re off for the next hit. In fact, every spiritual system I''m familiar with has warnings about equating money and things, with happiness. So I don''t see how anyone can think this, not really, unless they are just dismissing all the wisdom of the ages and virtually every culture, out of hand.
Money can however, buy an awful lot of remarkable distraction from having to deal with your essential emptiness, or true aloneness, or with your mortality - yourself. But happiness? Nope. But that sure won''t stop people from trying. It''s why advertising is so successful. If you only buy (insert whatever) you will be happy/desired/powerful. Besides, happiness is overrated. No one would even know what it was without being UNhappy. Inner peace is better.
Money is important certainly - it represents security, power, choices, and for many people, love. But money is only a mental construct. One we''ve pretty much all agreed on, not a thing apart from our creation of it or our relationship with it. All I know is I try every day to choose not to internalize the attitude that my happiness comes from my circumstances. I''m not always successful, and often allow myself to be battered down by outer stuff - if it was easy, we''d all be blissed out and peaceful. But that struggle for inner peace that transcends outer conditions, is at the heart of most religions, isn''t it?
I was UNhappy from a horrible break up, and I stayed that way for too many years. Then I got cancer. That blasted me into the realization that I was CHOOSING to waste my life being unhappy. I made another choice. I chose peace - the belief that I would be OK and content no matter whether I was with someone or not - that my life was GOOD and to ACT like it. Money NEVER factored into any of that.
i''d rather be rich and unhappy then sad and poor.
Research on happiness suggests that money and happiness are *very* strongly related up to a point. Once people reach the point of having their basic needs comfortably paid for -- food, shelter, healthcare, education -- then money and happiness become disassociated.Date: 6/21/2010 7:02:23 PM
Author: Steal
I can''t tell you how much I disagree with this.Date: 6/21/2010 6:38:57 PM
Author: missy
Money is important but not as important as health and loved ones. The most important thing to me is our health (mine and the health of my loved ones). After that it is all gravy as far as I''m concerned. Nothing is insurmountable when you have your health. You can have all the money in the world and without your health (and the health of your loved ones) what good is it?
Money makes things easier but you cannot buy happiness.
If it is not buying happiness then you are not spending it properly.
Yep. It isn''t easy at all. I certainly never said money was unimportant, and the lack of money does indeed make life harder. Maslow was pretty clear on a few things. But as I said, money in and of itself creating happiness...or security....or love...or....you get the drift, is the mirage. Ask Jesus. Ask The Buddha. Of course, even most people that subscribe to those religions don''t actually act like they believe that. It''s probably THE hardest thing to do. But we''re all assured that some have done it, so it CAN be done, even if we choose not to.
agree!
Oh come on DF, you should still be able to get at least a couple thou from that run-down piece of crap Lange & Sohne of yours.Date: 6/21/2010 10:15:39 PM
Author: Dancing Fire
agree!good reason to donate your $$$s to the DF diamond fund.
oh come on Karen,imagine all the good karmas that will be heading your way after you put a big smile on DF''s face.Date: 6/21/2010 10:20:25 PM
Author: ksinger
Oh come on DF, you should still be able to get at least a couple thou from that run-down piece of crap Lange & Sohne of yours.Date: 6/21/2010 10:15:39 PM
Author: Dancing Fire
agree!good reason to donate your $$$s to the DF diamond fund.
What we really need to do here is to think about what money IS. Money is really only a representation of something. As I said, an agreed upon mental construct. We allow ourselves to attach great significance to it, (just look how much emotion is here in this very thread, and no one is even arguing!) - far more than being a convenient, portable, agreed upon store of value. At one time, prosperity - having money - was considered evidence of one''s election for salvation by God. And we''re still prone to think that people without money are actually WORTH less than someone with it - as evidenced by the comments here where people want to be "seen" as successful, and of course the easiest, most visble announcement of that is how much money you have. Money also gets us respect, even unearned. People without money, die, and most of us don''t think too much about it: Oh well, if you dont'' have money.... These are just a few of the attitudes that all of us have internalized, whether we admit it or not. Most of us would say "Oh no, not true." But most of us ACT differently. The real question is why we ALLOW such wild inequities in our HEADS. Heck no, nobody wants to be poor, because we all understand on some level, that along with being poor comes our culture''s assessment that WE are worth LESS. So I would say that money is still being used as proof of election, even if it isn''t divine election.
Of course "poor" (at least in the US where "poor" has a meaning that usually doesn''t include dying in the street from malnutrition and non-existent sanitation) is pretty much a state of mind too. I was sheltered from the fact that, technically speaking - by most economic indicators, I was "poor" growing up. I didn''t know it, and so didn''t ACT it. I only found out much later, how on the edge we always were, and how it stressed my mom. But she never acted "poor" and she had even been poor as a child, at least after her father died and left their mom to finish raising 4 of the 6 children alone.
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