Happy vs wealth

[Pah]

"…once a country has lifted itself out of poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy…” According to Layard, “a zero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and this rat race is a big source of unhappiness.” [Economist]

Is unhappiness the result of accumulation of wealth? or is it just another way of saying money doen't buy happiness?

 

[SoulTYPE]

It says that

1)jealousy of another's status is more important than happiness. Because these rich societies are alway trying to compete and out do another, they are expressing more jealous and envy than happiness.

2)Judging by whoever wrote this, I would say that he believes that money CAN NOT buy happiness.

3)Some folk have a strange idea of happiness. All they are concerned about is being more important than the next person.

I like pah's articles

 

[michel]

Hi Pah,

We've all heard the cliche 'it is better to be wealthy and unhappy than to be poor and unhappy'. To be serious, the answer, I think, is that happiness does not stem from wealth.

To me, happiness is probably mostly something which is dependent on whether you are having your 'needs' met or not.

I once saw a TV programme in which a girl, who had been declared as being in comatose,in a 'total vedgetative state' was sitting, in a wheel chair in front of a whole audience. She had been in the tvs for some eight years, and the only reason that her life support had not been switched off is that one of her parents was adamant that that should not happen.
One day, the parents noticed her eyes open, and she was blinking.
The girl in the audience was incapable of any movement whatsoever, except fo the blinking of her eyes - one for 'no' two for 'yes'.
The guy whose show it was went to her and asked 'Do you wish that the machine had been turned off?' Somehow - don't ask me how, but along with the one blink answer there was some 'aura' of conviction in the girl's answer. The guy then asked her if she was glad to be alive, and she fiercely blinked twice.
I just could not understand it.

It was only one day, a couple of weeks later, when I was talking to a psychologist, that, after telling him the story, he gave me the answer.
She was happy because she was having her needs met.
She was being cared for in every way by people who loved her; in her small world, there was nothing that she wanted except for that. She WAS happy.

There's nothing whatsoever in that story that relates to her financial situation; what good would money do for her?

 

[SoulTYPE]

Unfortunatly money helps us having our needs met MICH.

It's rich society that generally give a bad name to money.

 

[michel]

I know, Soul,

The point I was trying to make was that money is not the only essential component for happiness!!!!!
:tsk:

 

[huajiro]

More money = more problems. I think this is due to the fact that more money means more responsibility......meaning more work.......less time......less fun.

 

[SoulTYPE]

The only "happiness" money buys is very short term. So therefore it's effect has ended and needed to be "replaced" for another "short termer". Constant.