13 Dec Busting Happiness Myths
I found this interesting article on the net a few weeks ago and thought I’d share it with you in installments.
Myth: Money buys happiness.
Truth: Of course, if you don’t have enough money to buy the necessities of life, you’re not even going to be contemplating happiness let alone attaining it. However, once you have these necessities, then it makes sense to decide if money will buy happiness, and the answer seems to be “no.”
This calls to mind the old line about money not buying happiness – the man with $50 billion is no happier than the man with $40 billion!
Stossel interviewed lottery winners, and found money didn’t buy happiness, but often bought the opposite. He also talked to authorities that spent their lives studying and writing about happiness.
He interviewed Dr. David Myers, author of the book “The Pursuit of Happiness.” Myers said once you get by poverty, money doesn’t do much to provide happiness no matter how much stuff you buy.
He writes, “Clearly, the stockpiles of CDs, the closets full of clothes, the big-screen stereo TV systems don’t do it.” Furthermore, a survey of the people on the Forbes richest list found they were rated no happier than anyone else. Myers writes that even as our national wealth and income increase, with double the income and double what money buys, we don’t double or even increase our happiness.