Does Money Buy Happiness ?
July 4th 2010 09:09
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The Gallup Organization, in their first world poll analyzed data from more than 136,000 people in 132 countries to determine if one’s level of happiness is influenced by one’s income. The survey, which included people from all income levels, asked them to rate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 being the “best possible life.” It found that while life satisfaction rises with personal and national income, happiness is more strongly associated with factors including working full-time, being respected and social support. "... while it is true that getting richer will make you more satisfied with your life, it may not have the big impact we thought on enjoying life," said Gallup's Ed Diener, prof. emeritus, U of Illinois.
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Comment by Lester Caudill
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I have always felt that happiness is something we all can have rich or poor is just how you look at things in life.
What makes me happy is God, Family, health, friends, and peace things to do. If money was what made us happy half the people in the world would be depressed.
Comment by katyzzz
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Lovely to see you again, Lester.
Comment by Quintin J Watt
As to the money thing; as Lester Caudill, previous poster, very rightly says: rich may not equal happy - it very often doesn't - but as sure as hell poor = UNhappy ... if by poverty we mean literally worrying about how we're gonna make ends meet. He's dead right there; that causes every kind of stress known to humankind. Not only emotional and mental but, much evidence shows too, physical - including generally shorter life expectancies.
This will, of course, always be exacerbated by such things as poor housing, poor hygiene provision, chronic unemployment ... and even those who are better off but forced to live in such communities will tend to be more stressed and suffer all the above.
'Satisfied'? I take that to mean 'contented'. That is achieved economically, in a very uncomplicated way, by having 'enough': - sufficient income, adequate housing, sufficient savings or provision for the future, a stable home and family life, a secure job or livelihood. But true happiness runs deeper than that. It is more than just contentment. It is only really possibe if one has - to parapharse a very overused quote 'a dream'! Some busniess people ought to know this - if they ever heard of the 'Maslow pyramid'. Unfortunately, though, too many of them , if they know of this at all, think it doesn't apply to them; only their potential customers. But - hello? - its's ALL human beings [and you're one too, aren't you?]
So why aren't all the millionaires happy? Well, some are. Quite a few are not, though. If they, like so many business people these days, are working all the hours the good Lord made - no time for wife [or husband], kids, friends, not even any 'me' time to just have fun or even relax - well, yeah, OF COURSE they're not gonna be happy. Too many 'high fliers' I'm afraid, fit this description today. If they are spending all their time EARNING money- and never taking time out to enjoy the fruits of it - and, still worse, if they are spending all their time worrying about how to make still more; well, do you think they are ever gonna be happy?
And too many of them, alas, also get dragged into a lifestyle that they didn't choose - they do all kinds of things that are supposed to go with being rich, that rich people are 'supposed' to do ... and, often, if they didn't really CHOOSE this lifestyle, surpise surpise, again; they're not happy.
If, in addition, they feel they can only 'stay up there' by keeping everybody else down - oh dear; disaster, sooner or later .....
If the heart attack from stress and unhealthy lifestyle doesn't get them fiirst then - what ALWAYS happens to those who try to fly way too high [and think the wind of good fortune will carry them up there forever]? .....
you guessed it: they come crashing down when they fall, very very hard - and if they've made only enemies and rivals on the way, and neglected all their friends; guess what too - no-one's gonna catch them; nope, they'll all watch gleefully!
I wish I could remember who it was who said it,; someone in showbiz - which can be just as cutthroat as the business world for sure! ..
"Be kind to the people you meet on the way up ...... cos you meet the same people on the way down again... "
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spriritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
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I guess we could all do with being kind to one another, rich or poor.