The Relationship Between Money and Happiness

Does money really matter to get happiness? Most people take this in a generalised way and may abruptly reply without realising that the human character is very intricate and a generalized reply will not be correct to explain it.

We will discuss here, if money can actually get happiness.

The truth:

If a child is brought up in affluent way and grows into a wealthy adult, he may always feel very glad to show off his richness and impress people with it. On the other hand, if he was raised in a poor family where he was denied every expensive things, he will certainly feel unhappy. It will bother him when around people with money.

This is a typical example where money brings the happiness. So we can say money can get happiness for some people.

But, a person may have different types of needs. He is very rich, but he feels lonely as he does not have any friends. Can money get him friends and make him happy? His being rich will not increase his level of happiness.

If you rate happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, money may give him happiness at a level around 4.  He cannot reach a score of 10 unless his need to have friends and social life improves.

So money may get you the material things and not real happiness. There are other things in life which matter for  happiness rather than money alone.

Lack of money

If someone is poor and is struggling hard to make his way and buy things, he can be really strained and feel unhappy. If this stress is sustained it can lead to depression. Therefore, being deficient of money can push one to a state of sadness.

For those who are deficient of money, it can really make their life unhappy to a great extent. Of course the level of unhappiness will be governed by other non-money factors as well. All of this combined may add to or further deterioration of his level of happiness. At the same time rich people may not be happy in spite of having enough money to buy anything as they lack happiness due to other aspects of life, which cannot be taken care by money. So money cannot always buy the happiness.