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Thread: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

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    Default Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Life is easier when you no longer have to live in worry for meeting your rent / mortgage, food, and bills expenses. But money can't buy you happiness.

    A very well off - think brand new Porsche and a Mercedes within one month just for fun well off - friend of mine committed suicide. I just learned this today. Early 30s, left a 3 year old behind. I always had suspicion he made a kid in search for happiness, as he simply couldn't find nor buy it - and not for a lack of trying. But I don't think you can find happiness in somebody else, it has to come from you, and others around you can merely supplement, enhance it.

    On paper he had everything.

    I hope you found what you were looking for, friend.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    There is wealth and there is debt. Just because someone has expensive items does not mean they own them. Wealth can be gotten dishonorably as well as hard work and knowledge. Assuming your friend didn't have debt and was well off by the sweat of his brow, there is mental illness to consider.

    That said, having the love of my children and the love that I have for them is my life, but I did invest in them and their children as well. So, if one is so bent, children are a gift.

    Also, life is just hard and some are more prepared than others to handle. Some have had horrible experiences. When I see Joe Biden I see a man who lost a wife, a daughter, and a son. For me this is life's greatest pain. If you listen to him 40 years ago and listen to him now, you can see and hear the difference. He also once almost died from a brain aneurysm or CVA. He also once thought he couldn't go on. He had friends who encouraged him. We need family and friends and some people, for whatever reason, just never have acquired any.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    If money can,t buy you happiness, then you really don't know where to shop!

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Chuck, there was no debt. Trust me, this was big money. Nothing has made me as happy as becoming a father, even though I never really wanted it. I guess we really don't know what makes us happy. But imagine being able to buy whatever you wanted, and none of it mattered. Then you try having a family, and what if that also doesn't make you happy? I imagine you could easily lose hope of ever finding happiness then.

    Brian, I don't know what to tell you, obviously that would be subjective, but I have NEVER been able to buy myself happiness outside of the few days lasting lasting roller coaster of a ride of positive emotions. Nothing long lasting, just an endless cycle of consumerism that needs to be repeated every few days.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Poverty is not a sure fire ingredient for happiness either. So, it must be something else.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    Life is easier when you no longer have to live in worry for meeting your rent / mortgage, food, and bills expenses. But money can't buy you happiness.

    A very well off - think brand new Porsche and a Mercedes within one month just for fun well off - friend of mine committed suicide. I just learned this today. Early 30s, left a 3 year old behind. I always had suspicion he made a kid in search for happiness, as he simply couldn't find nor buy it - and not for a lack of trying. But I don't think you can find happiness in somebody else, it has to come from you, and others around you can merely supplement, enhance it.

    On paper he had everything.

    I hope you found what you were looking for, friend.
    So sorry to hear about your friend. People with money do this all of the time. As someone who has struggled at times with depression, I feel for him. But the way I see it, life is so short anyway, may as well hang in there and hope for the best - because really, for the person who commits suicide, their struggle is over, it’s the people they leave behind who now have a lot of pain to deal with. It just makes me sad, to think someone feels so bad that suicide becomes the only option. My cousin killed himself a few years ago, but he had major mental issues that he didn’t get help for, and was struggling with an ever growing mountain of debt, especially tax debt. So high that there was no way he’d ever get out from under it. He got some rope and found a beautiful, isolated beach in Costa Rica, and hung himself from a tree. I knew it was going to happen, and we begged him for years to get help - but he didn’t. All I can think is, he did live an exciting life - he traveled and did all of the things a lot of people wish they could do. He spent a year backpacking through Peru before his death.

    Your friend left behind a 3 year old. That’s just heartbreaking.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Quote Originally Posted by Igraine View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    Life is easier when you no longer have to live in worry for meeting your rent / mortgage, food, and bills expenses. But money can't buy you happiness.

    A very well off - think brand new Porsche and a Mercedes within one month just for fun well off - friend of mine committed suicide. I just learned this today. Early 30s, left a 3 year old behind. I always had suspicion he made a kid in search for happiness, as he simply couldn't find nor buy it - and not for a lack of trying. But I don't think you can find happiness in somebody else, it has to come from you, and others around you can merely supplement, enhance it.

    On paper he had everything.

    I hope you found what you were looking for, friend.
    So sorry to hear about your friend. People with money do this all of the time. As someone who has struggled at times with depression, I feel for him. But the way I see it, life is so short anyway, may as well hang in there and hope for the best - because really, for the person who commits suicide, their struggle is over, it’s the people they leave behind who now have a lot of pain to deal with. It just makes me sad, to think someone feels so bad that suicide becomes the only option. My cousin killed himself a few years ago, but he had major mental issues that he didn’t get help for, and was struggling with an ever growing mountain of debt, especially tax debt. So high that there was no way he’d ever get out from under it. He got some rope and found a beautiful, isolated beach in Costa Rica, and hung himself from a tree. I knew it was going to happen, and we begged him for years to get help - but he didn’t. All I can think is, he did live an exciting life - he traveled and did all of the things a lot of people wish they could do. He spent a year backpacking through Peru before his death.

    Your friend left behind a 3 year old. That’s just heartbreaking.
    Thanks. The finality of it really strikes hard. There's simply NOTHING you can do anymore. You will never again not even run into that person on the streets. I know it sounds obvious, but for some reason I never really thought of it before.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Poverty is not a sure fire ingredient for happiness either. So, it must be something else.
    Yeah, I did state that in the OP.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    "happiness" shouldn't even be the goal

    There are much greater and deeper and sustaining forms of satisfaction than the fleeting cloud-states we call "happy" that pass through our existence from time to time.

    But let us remember how much comfort and protection from misery and pain and hunger money can "buy." Forgetting this is an act of privilege.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to borrow an ancient concept. So yes, happiness, is a goal if not the goal for philosophers and writers. Happiness is different for everyone, but the commonality of the pursuit of such isn't, whatever it turns out to be. Right now, I am most happy when no one is telling me what I must do.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to borrow an ancient concept. So yes, happiness, is a goal if not the goal for philosophers and writers. Happiness is different for everyone, but the commonality of the pursuit of such isn't, whatever it turns out to be. Right now, I am most happy when no one is telling me what I must do.
    That "happiness" meant fortune, happenstance, even luck: the positive results of work and what we would call "livelihood."

    "Happiness" is not an "ancient" concept, especially not in meaning a pleasurable mental state (not that word, anyway). The first recorded use in English is from 1300s. Even "happy" is from "hap" + y, meaning having luck or good fortune.

    And we all know that luck is elusive and fleeting, but yes, you may pursue it as you wish.

    The ancients wisdom-keepers recommend otherwise, however. But what did they know? As Huck Finn says of Biblical figures, "I don't take no stock in dead people."

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Chuck Naill View Post
    Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to borrow an ancient concept. So yes, happiness, is a goal if not the goal for philosophers and writers. Happiness is different for everyone, but the commonality of the pursuit of such isn't, whatever it turns out to be. Right now, I am most happy when no one is telling me what I must do.
    That "happiness" meant fortune, happenstance, even luck: the positive results of work and what we would call "livelihood."

    "Happiness" is not an "ancient" concept, especially not in meaning a pleasurable mental state (not that word, anyway). The first recorded use in English is from 1300s. Even "happy" is from "hap" + y, meaning having luck or good fortune.

    And we all know that luck is elusive and fleeting, but yes, you may pursue it as you wish.

    The ancients wisdom-keepers recommend otherwise, however. But what did they know? As Huck Finn says of Biblical figures, "I don't take no stock in dead people."
    You need to go back another millennium or so - maybe that's the "ancient" period - but you'll find the Greeks using the word Eudaimonia

    The issue, as Chuck points out, is what happiness actually is; and the Greeks were very keen on that notion. What else was Aristotle talking about, and his golden mean? What was the purpose of the Stoics? Have you ever read Epictetus?

    It's not even isolated to the Greeks. On the other side of the planet, Buddha was teaching people how to not suffer. He was teaching them how to be happy.
    "A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Agreed Tsherbs

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.




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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    It is often asked, how do I have a good life. We sometimes are led to think it means to have power or self determination, and the resouces to bring it about. If we have these we shall be happy aka content. If by happy we mean, joy, this may be a different topic.

    A writer once suggested that the greatest motivation is to be relavent. I tend to agree because one can be relavent even if their condiditions are less than adequate.


    I had an uncle who like to respond to the question, "how much money to you need" to which he laughed and said, "just a little more". It was quite true for him.

    Perhaps what we are really talking about is contentment. Or, learning how not to strive, but being settled. To be content even when life is not pleasent or going well. Some have said that after they experienced a very trying ordeal, they have experienced peace within themselves and have developed the habit of enjoying their lives minute by minutes. I've experienced this myself. It is neither longing for the past or wanting the future. It's enjoying your pen collection, your morning coffee, the first sip of your favorite libation, the embrace of those who love you, of learning to live and enbrace your own self, and of course, learning to love others as much as you love yourself. Sorry for the brief thinking outloud.
    Last edited by Chuck Naill; April 4th, 2021 at 05:08 AM.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Thanks Chuck, I enjoyed reading your "rambling".

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    "happiness" shouldn't even be the goal

    There are much greater and deeper and sustaining forms of satisfaction than the fleeting cloud-states we call "happy" that pass through our existence from time to time.

    But let us remember how much comfort and protection from misery and pain and hunger money can "buy." Forgetting this is an act of privilege.
    I keep coming back to this post in my mind and I really agree with it entirely. Well said.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Quote Originally Posted by adhoc View Post
    Thanks Chuck, I enjoyed reading your "rambling".

    Quote Originally Posted by TSherbs View Post
    "happiness" shouldn't even be the goal

    There are much greater and deeper and sustaining forms of satisfaction than the fleeting cloud-states we call "happy" that pass through our existence from time to time.

    But let us remember how much comfort and protection from misery and pain and hunger money can "buy." Forgetting this is an act of privilege.
    I keep coming back to this post in my mind and I really agree with it entirely. Well said.
    I don't seen happiness as solely the goal. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is how the framers chose to communicate. Pursuing does not mean it will actually be attained. And, one must have life and liberty as a beginning point of which forced migrated Africans never were allowed to enjoy. Of course, others were also denied life and liberty. However, the framers didn't define happiness, but silently acknowledged that happiness is as individuals right to define and then pursue.

    One can be happy in their profession, happy in their hobbies, happy in their aquisitions, happy in their family, happy in their solitude. Happiness is related to satisfaction, contentment, and being established as one decides. It is not to me some "pie in the sky" notion. And there is a degree of decision to be happy similarly to deciding to be kind, not cynical, or unselfish.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    True, that. I was looking over my journal entries and noticed the very first one in this journal. I wrote it the day after I made it to a million dollars in net worth. I don't have any debt to speak of. Everything is paid off, or gets paid off with every statement, or every payday. I'm still working eight months after I reached that goal. I thought I'd be doing things differently, like maybe retiring and relaxing. Okay, so COVID quickly put an end to those ideas, because if I couldn't go out and do stuff, I might as well go to work. I work in one of those essential occupations, so there was no threat of layoffs. I thought maybe my financial habits would change, and I'd spend money on luxury items. Nope. I love my tiny Prius c, so I don't want a new car. I don't want a big, fancy house. I don't wear fancy clothes at work, or anywhere else really. I have enough fine jewelry. I don't feel the need for more, as much as I admit to liking shiny and sparkly things. Life goes on for me as it did pre-million, and pre-COVID. I work graveyard shift, by choice.

    Money not only doesn't buy me happiness, but it hasn't changed me or my life. What brings me happiness are my cats. Yep. I'm a crazy cat lady, only with fewer cats than that.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    I get that. In a similar position here. However, in my case the assets are kind of locked in, and while I could up my fluidity by borrowing against the assets, I choose not to take on that kind of debt. So in practical terms I remain a working man paying bills every month, just like before any investment.

    That said, changing the manner or magnitude of spending is, in my opinion, a function of the values you grew up with. The values I grew up with, and adhere to most of the time, tell me there is often very little or no appreciable additional utility in buying expensive examples of an item that is available fully functional at a lower price . The only time I don't really follow that principle is either when the cost difference is insignificant in terms of impact on my quality of life, or when the kind of precision that costs more is actually required, as in some tools.

    No, money does not buy one happiness, except of the most fleeting and valueless kind. It can buy you security, and that would certainly eliminate some of the stresses we face in life.

    As for what constitutes a content state... I do note that it seems that at no other time in history have we been so obsessed with filling our days with measurable things. What ever happened to taking time to simply being, to taking a real breath, to sitting and letting one's eyes rest on the view, to letting in the music? Everything is so much a rush these days, so much a thoughtless desire to match one's peers, to compare, to race toward some money-linked pseudo nirvana. And while I am no less immune to this than anyone, I do try to resist it. The constant gaslighting of social and marketing media is a tough nut to crack at times.

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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.


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    Default Re: Money doesn't buy you happiness.

    Why act so rudely? You go there with your pockets stuffed full of cash, and all you bring back is genuine pleasure. If you don't steal a casino, you can either depart with your luggage packed with money, a ton of troubles, or even both. I've always fantasized about breaking into a casino wildcard city vip casino login or a makeshift bank there in order to steal the money and never use it.
    Last edited by Angelbane; October 5th, 2022 at 09:20 AM.

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