Money or Happiness?

Being happy doesn’t depend on number of dollars we have in our pocket. It’s a psychological concept. Rich and poor, both can be happy.

However, we make statements like ‘Being happy is better than being rich’, when we have money. But being rich gives us the freedom and privilege to do things that makes us happy. Being rich gives us the power to do things that we want to do.

In many parts of world, people slog whole day simply to earn money equivalent to a couple of dollars. The work for more than 12 hours a day, hardly sparing any time to spend with their family. Yet, when we ask these people if they are happy, they say they are. The fact is, some are happy, many are not. But they move on with life. For those people, happiness simply means earning enough to satisfy their hunger.

We always compare happiness with richness and poorness, simply because we aren’t really aware what poverty is. When someone asks you the question ‘Happiness or Richness’, you say you are ready to give up anything against happiness. This is because you don’t know how it feels to be hungry for long hours. You don’t how it feels when you children don’t get enough to fill their stomach.

In such situations, when food is more important than a smile, when a fighting cold is preferred over a healthy laugh, it’s very difficult to choose happiness.

In my opinion, the right question should be ‘basic necessities’ or happiness? Until you don’t have food, you don’t think of happiness. The battle fought by poor is ‘surviving’, not living.

When you are struggling with your finances, you don’t really care whether you are happy or sad, angry or calm, patient or impatient. The only thing that matters is earning money to meet expenses for eating food, living under a roof, and having at least a pair of clothes to wear. And if you don’t have money for this, you cannot be happy at all. So, does giving up money makes you happy? I don’t think so.

On the other hand, by asking this question, I don’t think we give proper justice to ‘money’ that we have earned by working hard. Why do you want to give up money for happiness? Can’t we have it both together.

Even if we are rich, we have struggled a lot to become so, haven’t we? The path to riches was difficult. So, why do you want to give it up so easily?

Alright, we do we make such comparisons, in the first place? We sometimes feel all the unhappiness in life is caused and money is the root of all evil.

Think about this: You don’t have money to eat food, and no one offers you food without exchanging money. Later, you find some money that helped you satiate your hunger, is money still evil? Not at all.

The fact is, when you start earning more, your behavior changes dramatically, which causes most unhappiness in your life. Don’t blame money if you can’t handle it.