What Brings Happiness/Makes People Happy? Money??

You know, there are several reasons why I sometimes choose to make a comment that I'm about to leave on my blog or someone else's blog into a Post, whether than just a Comment. One is because the comment seems too long to just be a comment. Two is because I need to remain in the habit of Posting to my Blog once in awhile, so that those who follow me will continue to come by to check out what's new and three is because I feel the comment thread my comment relates to has gotten too long. This time, it is the first two reasons listed above that are causing me to make this Comment into a Post.

Anyway, in the next Post down, "Don't Forget to Enjoy the Journey", one of my favorite Commenters, BB-Idaho, left the most interesting link entitled, "Are We Happy Yet?". It contains research in the form of a survey about what sorts of things contribute to Happiness and what does not.

Among the other conclusions, one of the most interesting ones is that contrary to the popular belief by a lot of religious folk that money does not make people happy, well actually, according to the survey, it does. I was always a little skeptical of this idea anyway.

My father used to build custom homes and though he never considered himself rich, we were never really lacking in that department and my class mates at school considered us well off because we lived in one of the expensive custom homes built by my father.

My parents would point out that the "Custom Home" we lived in was furnished with a lot of modest, inexpensive furniture and that we could only afford it because Dad built it himself. My parents were very humble, not too showy sort of people; not like the way people generally stereo type the rich folk. Once Dad had a Million Dollars on the books, he claimed that "Now a days, a million is no longer that much money." Well, actually, that was awhile ago and I think that back in the 70s, it was a lot, or at least it was more than the parents of a lot my fellow class mates possessed. Everything is relative, you know.

Anyway, interestingly, I decided that I didn't like being envied. Envy creates a division between people that blocks genuine friendship and because of this, I considered it more of a negative, whether than something to be flaunted.

As odd as it may seem, when my husband and I got married, he had a Bran New, Bright Red Camero and I actually disliked the attention. I just wanted an ordinary economy car that would not cause me to stand out in any way.

Now, a lot of my readers are not going to fully understand my attitude, because it's actually not a very common one, but it was what it was and it actually took me awhile to realize that for someone who had never owned a new car before, nor much else that is more luxury than necessity, this was a really big deal and it is only natural to feel proud when one can purchase something so special and so much beyond what he's had in the past.

So you see, there are some negatives to having some wealth, such as feeling isolated by other people's envy, no matter what you do to avoid causing it. And than there is the matter of not feeling as close as to your father that works so much and is to himself a lot, as creative people often are. I don't know if not knowing who your true friends are was so much of a problem. For some reason, I didn't feel that one as much, yet the envy thing really bothered me quite a lot. I felt that it created a feeling of isolation that I did not like, especially since I never did consider myself any better than anyone else. Why should I? It was my father who earned the money, not me.

There is another side to this, though, for there are positives and negatives within every human experience.

Before I get into that, though, I'd like to tell you about how the rich and the poor sometimes view things differently and those new to wealth, or even smaller pieces of occasional luxury, view things differently than those who have had money for more than one generation.

An example of the first of these is how my parents used to note that they could always tell, when people walked through the houses as they were put up for sale, who could and could not afford to buy them by the way they reacted. The "lookiloos", who couldn't even begin to afford such a home, just reacted in amazement. Those who were potential buyers were way more critical and not as impressed.

An example of how those new to wealth view things differently than those who have had money for more than one generation is how my husband was so proud of his new Camero, but I didn't think it was any big deal.

One of the differences in attitudes between the rich and the poor that has really stood out for me, though, relates to the phrase "Oh, it's no big deal! It's just money!" Well, this sounds really good and even impressive at first, until one realizes that it is mainly the rich who say these things.

Probably the most key example of this casual attitude about money and things is the way my father treated his vehicles. He was not at all like my husband who is really big on maintenance, never misses an oil change, tire rotation, transmission service or anything else that is recommended for maintaining a car. No, my father actually put a lot of his tools and contractor supplies in the trunk of his new Lincoln Town Car. They used to really tease him about it and tell him how much they loved his fancy "Work Truck". In contrast, when those who have had less money most of their life, finally get something special like that, they treasure it, value it, take great care of it and protect it with their life.

The reality that I learned later in life is that while I was learning that "Money is not what brings happiness.", "It's just money.", "A house is meant to be lived in." and "They are just things.", someone else was learning "The Value of Money" and how important it is to take care of what you have because it was a lot of work to earn what it took to purchase these things.

Getting back, though, to the link "Are We Happy Yet?", though I was taught that money is not what brings happiness and have even listed some of the negatives for you above, even so, there is another side to this picture. I saw with my own eyes what happened to my parents and to the basic mood in the house hold when the economy went bad and they lost a bunch of it. I have also experienced first hand what it is like to struggle financially in my own marriage and witnessed the marital stress that can result. This is why I'm not too terribly surprised that some survey found a correlation between money and happiness.

Though money can not buy a lot of things that are quite valuable, such as love and true friendship, even so, a lot of what money can buy is not without value. Though I'm not much into the showy prestige stuff, money also buys Food and Clothing, as well as a few Intangibles, yes, Intangibles, such as Education and the Opportunity to Travel. Education leads to Knowledge and Traveling leads to very precious Memories. Knowledge and Memories are both Intangibles, so you see, money buys more than just "Things".

Well now, isn't that interesting? I was intending to respond to the entire article "Are We Happy Yet?" and yet I didn't even get past the first issue mentioned, which is money.