Why can't money buy you happiness?

Question

I grew up poor, far beyond the poverty line. Ever since I turned 18 I've manage to improve my standard of living more and more. It seems as if the more money I have, the happier I am. Why can't money buy happiness?

Answer 1

You grew up on a poverty level so did I. But we appriciate the money we have and probable manage it well and that is why you are happy. I am also on a much better standard of living and can now pay my bills and I am also happy. I don't think it is the money that makes us happy as compaired to the appriciation of what we do have now as adults. I also have a wonderful husband and a son I am very proud of. Wouldn't you agree. Money does make life a lot easier when you have enough to pay bills as long as you don't get to greedy. But it doesn't mean it cant be take away just as fast, either.

Answer 2

Money can do so many things to change ones life. For good and for bad but there is an understanding about how this works.

Usually when you grow up without money and you come into some gradually (meaning you have a good job and it took you a few years to get where you are) you tend to appreciate the value of money. You may splurge a bit and so on so forth but you at some point calm the spending down because you know what it was like poor so you know when to stop frivilous spending. Rich people always had everything so they don't know what it's like to be poor. How can you appreciate something if you never been there. Some rich people can appreciate the fact that they are wealthy but they really don't know what it's like to be poor but they also don't care to find out. So life goes on.

Now the big unhappy part about being rich and unhappy. You have all that you want but sometimes you don't have real friends you have all the material but no substance. You go to all the parties and all that and you pick up the nice chicks but you know why they are really there. It's because you have money. so now that empty feeling hits you and you realize that nobody really likes you because of you the like you because you have a lot of something they want and they will play friend to be apart of the in crowd.

It just all depends on how you look at it and how you allow it to affect you in life. Just don't let it change you.

Answer 3

It can certainly make your life easier and it can give you the opportunity to experience things that you wouldn't get to experience without money. Let's say you wake up one morning and you decide you want to spend a week visiting Japan. If you have enough money, you can just book a hotel and go to the airport. Otherwise, you'll have to do something else.
However, money can't truly make you happy.
Imagine you learned you had terminal cancer. Wouldn't you be willing to give all the money you had for a cure? Also, a lot of other factors contribute to happiness: Being surrounded by people who love and appreciate you, having a fulfilling careeer (what if your job pays a lot, but you hate doing it every day?), getting a sense of contributing, etc...
All these more intangible things can also contribute to making a person happy and it's become popular for a lot of people to downshifting (taking less money in exchange for more free time).
It's a complex question, but money can't buy happiness as such. I think it's more of a question that lack of money is almost guaranteed to bring you hardship and contribute to unhappiness. If you have to constantly worry about where your next meal is coming from, it's very hard to be happy in those conditions. But past a certain point where necessities are met, and you can afford comfort and a certain degree of security, more money won't necessarily make you happier. That's where the intangibles in your life will come in.

Answer 4

When you can't even pay for basic food and shelter, being deprived becomes the focus of your life. But, once your basic needs are met and you have enough money to live compfortably, you can then start focussing on your OTHER needs, many of which money can't buy. When you get to the point where you have so much money, all you are doing is buying "stuff" to try to fill your life, you will probably find that the stuff is not making you happier. That is the point where you being working on making your life meaningful in other ways - love, compassion, accomplishments, giving - that kind of thing. Self-actualization is ultimately what wins out over gobs of money.

Answer 5

It buys brief good feelings at being able to purchase things and it provides security which is comforting. However, not all wealthy people are happy. Happiness also includes self satisfaction, loving yourself and having others genuinely care about you, doing good deeds etc. Wealth can actually cause unhappiness when people try to take it from you or are only interested in what you can buy them. You may look back on your childhood as unhappy and blame that on lack of money but I think you will find that you will reach a level where additional money does not increase your current happiness level.

Answer 6

I think you've answered your own question, that it indeed can. Those who say "money can't buy happiness" should see how happy they are without any money! Money doesn't just provide us with material wants and desires, but also provides us with a sense of security. Life is happier when you don't have to worry about how you're going to pay next month's bills. Also, having money opens up new ways to be happy, such as taking a college course that interests you, or being able to afford a fun hobby of your choice, or being able to travel to interesting places.

I think a more accurate saying would be, "there's more to happiness than money."

Congrats on improving your standing in life. Becoming someone more and better than what you used to be, I think, is one of the best ways of achieving life satisfaction, i.e. happiness.

Answer 7

It's the personality of the person that makes them happy, and the only thing that sometimes stops their happiness is the every day struggles of life.

Money takes those away, for the most part and lets them be the happy person they naturally are.

Some people are genuinely unhappy all the time. For those people money only gives them more time to wallow, and takes away a path to satisfaction, through succes that replaces sadness temporarily.

I think it's nearly impossible to make a sad person happy, a happy person can be sad for a while and come back.

Answer 8

Yes, you will likely become happier when you grow rich... up to certain level. At that level either you will get fed up with money (you want to do something different in your life) or you will find yourself exhausted in endless chase of wealth.

There are a lot of things you can do without big bucks... those small things, that you do not even notice, bring you ultimate happiness. Think about your family, your friends, healthy food you eat, and many others.

Just learn Abraham Maslow's theory on people's needs.

Answer 9

'money can't buy happiness but it makes misery much more fun' - Spike Milligan.

The point is you don't NEED money to make you happy- you have found that your quality of life has improved with financial stability- Mahatma Ghandi, jesus and various others found the reverse. It's a personal thing but your;e right- the proverb is wrong it's not that money can;t make you ahppy it's that you don't need money to have happiness- the two are not neccesarily connected.

Answer 10

Money can buy you happieness in abstract ways, for example you can buy a ferrari which will make u more confident therefore more happy, you can buy a expensive watch or anything else which will show to the world that your a rich man and therefore people will respect you. However, momey cant buy you happieness that matter inside, money can buy you sex but not love, money can give you many companions but not true friends.

money cant buy you happieness but it definetly helps.