Julia Steuer
February 7, 2012
English 113B
Professor Slobod
Money
and Happiness
Can money buy happiness, or does misery come
with the lack of money? I personally do not think a lot of money is necessarily
need for happiness. Although, when there is lack of money one cannot
enjoy life due to the stresses of a lack of necessities needed to live
comfortably . Necessities such as a home and food, things you need for a
family.
As I read an essay by Amitai Etzioni, “Working
at McDonald’s”, I saw how it angered he got over the fact that kids work at
McDonald’s. It angered him because he sees that once these kids start working
there they will be more likely to put work over school. When a teenager puts
money before school it stands in the way of their ability to achieve their
highest potential in the future. As he states, “While it is true that these
places provide income, work and even some training to such youngsters, they
also ten to perpetuate their disadvantaged status. They provide no career
ladders, few marketable skills, and undermine school attendance and
involvement.” (317) If that is so, then why do teenagers have jobs if it
has been seen to result in low wage jobs for their future? Any person likes to
have a comfortable set of money to be able to buy objects that they will enjoy,
or necessities they will feel proud to buy with their own money instead of
their parents’. Regardless of age money is something even teenagers need to at
least consume to feel meaning in their lives. I do not believe it is how
much money that makes a person happy but enough to live the life they want
to.
Most
people would accept that the human being is a composite of body, mind and
spirit. Each of those parts has separate needs which must be fulfilled if
happiness is to result. This fulfillment is most often, though not always,
achieved through the love and companionship found in a good marriage. The
newly-weds referred to above may start out together with few possessions and
little money and still be blissfully happy. Body, mind and spirit are
fulfilled. Yet, marital happiness is not a static thing. As the couple grow
older they change, and happiness has to be constantly worked for a lifelong
love and friendship. Sadly enough the divorce rate in the west shows that many
couples lack that incentive, and are not prepared to show the unselfishness and
willingness to put the needs of each other first, necessary if happiness is to
last. Very often, this process of alienation goes on at the very time when the
couple are getting past their money problems, when the pennies no longer have
to be counted.
This
situation is highlighted when money never has been a problem. Differences in
outlook, i.e. in mind and spirit, sever relationships most effectively. Whereas
one royal, for instance, was interested only in farming and country pursuits,
the wife, some years ago, decided to devote her life to 'Save the Children'.
Money never entered the equation. They are permanently separated. Mind and spirit
had grown apart.
In
an interesting editorial of an online informational site, Neil Patel talks
about happiness and the idea that no one needs to be rich. He thinks being rich
is unnecessary and takes money away from necessities other people don’t have. While
that being a hole different argument, Patel exaggerates on the idea that
getting what you need and getting what you want are two very different
obstacles in life that people often see as the same. When people have enough
money to a live an enjoyable and stress- free life, that is where the obstacle
for more money should end. He talks about how a man with five children should
make more than a man with two children. The savage competitiveness for money
has become such a power struggle in our world we can’t even stop to live our
lives. Patel says, “...you don’t need much money to live a comfortable
lifestyle. If you are trying to be an entrepreneur to make millions of dollars,
that’s great! But if you only need to make $10,000 or $20,000 a month to live a
great lifestyle, there are much more easier ways to make that money.” Why drive
yourself crazy to make more money than you need?
To succeed in life one
must have the accessories to succeed, and one of those accessories is money. A
lot of people these days go to college and high school on scholarship or have
student loans. Without school it is hard to succeed in a world like ours in
this day and age. Without money you can’t go to school and without school it
has been known you probably won’t live to your highest potential in life.
Thankfully there is such a thing as student loans and scholarships. Schools are
so much money these days if there weren’t programs and organizations that aided
us with money a lot less people would go to school. A society where only the
people with money can be the only people who live comfortable lives would be
barbaric.
So at least this can be said. Money itself is
neutral. The ideal is wise stewardship, i.e. its proper use, which generally
means making one's existing lifestyle more comfortable, but using excess income
for charitable purposes. Money should not be seen as the key to luxury and
self-indulgence. Money is not the root of all evil, but the correct version is
true enough; the love of money is the root of all evil . The love of money is a
cold, alienating obsession. Was Howard Hughes a happy man?
What
can also be said is that whereas money cannot buy happiness, the lack of it can
bring misery. Few things are worse than debt, as the family of Charles Dickens'
Mr Micawber knew full well. It is the duty of men, and in many cases today of
women, to provide enough money for the family to live in reasonable comfort. It
is not their duty to provide that comfort by going into debt. The modern way of
doing so is through the credit card which, if abused, is the sure road to
unhappiness.
There
is, perhaps, one sense in which money can buy happiness, and that is among the
poorest of the poor in the third world. Happiness for them would be a safe
home, enough food, medical care, and a school for their children. One day, the
conscience of the world will ensure that they are given these things.
It
is true that at weddings we often hear the newly-weds toasted in the words
Health, Wealth and Happiness, but the label itself distinguishes between the
three objectives. The fact is that you can be both happy and healthy and poor,
by normal standards, at the same time. Yet, if you are unhappy, money can only
cure your misery in some circumstances. And if you have an incurable illness no
amount of money can buy the treatment to reverse that condition.
On
the other hand, some may go to the extreme where money bring no happiness at
all, that it only corrupts people. In Forbes magazine’s online website there is
an article titled “Money, Happiness And The Pursuit Of Both” by Elizabeth
MacDonald, she talks about how we are never fully satisfied with what we have.
She believes that once we have money we spend our lives trying to get more and
once we get what we think we want we end up loosing the things we actually care
about and need. “Not only do we want what we don't have, we really don't know
what we want, and we think the things that we want will make us happy, which
they tend not to do.” Her ideas, backed up by much research, is undoubtably correct
in some cases, but not all. Depending on who you are talking about it could be
true. You could be talking about a selfish, stubborn, power hungry old man, in
which case it is true that money has corrupted him and taken over his life and
his ability to see the world. In this old man’s case MacDonald is probably
correct in saying that he would have been better off living a life struggling
to live comfortably. He probably would have had a loving family and much more
health rather than his life that has been based solely on work.
Although
MacDonald makes great and non- arguable points, I just believe that people can
be comfortable with what they have even if it isn’t much they still have things
in their lives other than objects that mean more in the end. Money is a problem
when you don’t have it, which a lot of people unluckily have to deal with. So,
with the lucky ones who get to experience being comfortable enough where money
is not a problem happiness can be achieved. Money does not bring happiness, but
lack of stands in the way of that happiness.
Bibliogrophy
- Etzioni, Amitai. "Working at McDonald's." Writing with a Thesis: A Rhetoric and Reader. By Sarah E. Skwire and David Skwire. Vol. 11. Boston: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005. 315-18. Print.
- MacDonald, Elizabeth. "Money, Happiness And The Pursuit Of Both." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Forbes Magazine, 14 Feb. 2006. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/11/money-happiness-consumption_cz_em_money06_0214pursuit.html>.
- Patel, Neil. "How Much Money Do You Really Need?" Quick Sprout — I’m Kind of a Big Deal. Quick Sprout, 5 Feb. 2011. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://www.quicksprout.com/2011/03/16/how-much-money-do-you-really-need/>.
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