Thread: Is Money Neccessary For Happiness?

A) Wrong forum. Go to extended discussion or something.

B) Go away, what a nonsense. Money doesn't make you happy. People can be perfectly happy living in the rainforest, without any money or anything. Buddha did NOT teach people to get attacked to bullshit you can buy with money.

money is a representation of valuable goods

you need vauable goods
whether that be bananas, drinkable water or shelter

2 people in a rainforest

one with a load of bananas, but no water
the other with water but no bananas
bingo, a transaction (or violence)

money is a representation of value that allows trade to occur

Can't trade?
Need something?
chances are you're unhappy

Money is a necessary condition for happiness, but it does NOT guarantee it. To a certain extent, money is a very important variable to attain an easy & happy life (No worries about the bills and all). But when personal wealth exceeds a certain point, it ceases to have a direct impact on Happiness. Bill Gates wouldn't necessarily be any happier than me if i won a million in the lottery.

Originally Posted by Neruo

Money doesn't make you happy. People can be perfectly happy living in the rainforest, without any money or anything.[/b]

That's an extremely idealistic and misguided representation of Happiness.

*Moved to Extended Discussion*

Originally Posted by Unicorn

That's an extremely idealistic and misguided representation of Happiness.[/b]

No, it is the truth. The question was 'Is money necessary for happiness'. The answer is 'no', because a lot of people have been happy, without using or even knowing about money.

I wasn't idealizing it, also that would be silly, no one that grew up in a proper civilisation would even want to live in a way. We are conditioned to like money. So be it.

Also, money isn't necessary at all. People could all be a bunch of communist and share everything freely. However, people suck, people want more then other people, people don't want to share, so we started to trade. Trade lead to money.

Anybody sitting around a campfire telling stories with their friends, or swimming at the beach, running in the park - or whateverdafuck - can be happy.

Money is not necessary for happiness.

On the flip side, even the richest, most idolized celebrities are often basket-cases of mental anguish, behind closed doors (and sometimes, all over the screen).

Money isn't even gauranteed to keep you happy, when you have it.

[Edit: I hadn't even read all of the other replies, so I didn't know that I pretty much just rehased Neuro's argument, but I have to say I agree with him.]

Originally Posted by Unicorn

That's an extremely idealistic and misguided representation of Happiness.[/b]

I don't think so. I think that is simply the realization that Happiness is relative. By your logic, We, who do not have the type of money that the most powerful people on the planet have, are not experiencing true happiness, even when we are happy. You are basing "Happiness" off of your level of comfort, without realizing that, had you not been brought up without all of the comforts that you have, you would still find yourself Happy, given certain circumstances.

If you like chocolate then money would definitely have made you happy if you were an Aztec...

"Cacao beans were used as currency in the Aztec Empire and continued so in many parts of rural Mexico for a century after the Conquest.

edible money . . .

Moctezuma's royal treasury vault was filled with bags of cacao seeds, not gold. Nezahualcoyotl's daily expenditure was said to be 32,000 beans. Nezahualcoyotl was the poet-king of Texcoco, a much smaller city than Tenochtitlan was to become, and the figure may be inflated by a factor of four. Still, that is a large budget. One porter could carry about 24,000 beans in a load. Bernal Diaz says more than 2000 containers of chocolate beverage were served daily to Moctezuma's palace guard.

days wage for porter: 100 beans
turkey cock: 200 beans
large hare: 100 beans
small rabbit: 30 beans
turkey egg: 3 beans
fish in maize husks: 3 beans
tamale: 1 bean

-based on Sophie and Michael Coe

Counterfeiters would make fake cacao beans out of amaranth dough, wax, and pieces of avocado pits. Ceramic cacao beans uncovered in Western Mexico fooled archaeologists for years."

~ Dale Pendell, Pharmako/Dynamis

Mo' money mo' problems.

I tend to agree w/ Nuero and Oneironaut. In the time when there was no civilization and only cavemen existed, they may have had some sort of barter system, but I highly doubt they had money. I'm sure a lot of them were happy. Actually, I'd dare to say they were probably more happy w/o the money and materialistic objects then we, as a modern society, are now that we have them. There would have been much less worrying about who owns what. They, more than likely, would have been more concerned w/ their families/tribes/whatever.

Really, adding money to the equation only complicated things. It caused people to become greedy and want more and more money and possessions. This leads to wars and chaos.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(f3if3i)</div>

Think about it. If you want entertainment...you have to have money...period. You&#39;re fooling yourselve if you think you can live a happy life without money. Everyone know that life is meant to be abundance and happy. Every great teachers teached that, like Jesus or Buddha.[/b]

What is your definition of happiness? Life, for the sake of this discussion, is meant to be lived happily but, like Oneironaut said, happiness is relative. If you would not consider yourself to be happy unless you were surrounded by plasma televisions and XBOX 360s, then yes, I suppose it would be difficult to be happy without a great deal of money at your disposal. However, to live a life of abundance doesn&#39;t necessarily mean to have a lot of material wealth. For instance, many people consider themselves to be happy so long as they have an abundance of family. I am not well versed enough in either Jesus&#39; or Buddha&#39;s teachings to speak definitively on the matter, but I think you should like to re-read what you have of their teachings. You may find that they lend themselves to any of a number of different interpretations.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Unicorn)</div>

Money is a necessary condition for happiness, but it does NOT guarantee it. To a certain extent, money is a very important variable to attain an easy & happy life[/b]

The only necessary condition of happiness is that one is happy. Many people lead not-easy/difficult lives but would still consider themselves to be living happily. Its a matter of opinion. The easier that you suppose it is for you to be happy, the happier you will be.

I&#39;d love to be a millionaire and buy every thing I want, that would mak me happy but not as happy as family and friends. People tend to want things more then have them. If you had loads of money, I reckon you would get bored of it soon enough.

Originally Posted by f3if3i

Think about it. If you want entertainment...you have to have money...period. You&#39;re fooling yourselve if you think you can live a happy life without money. Everyone know that life is meant to be abundance and happy. Every great teachers teached that, like Jesus or Buddha <--- did i spell that right?

Well, if you want to start having a successful life then i highly reccomend you check out this website:

http://thegoodlife.thesgrprogram.com/[/b]

Of course it is possible being happy without money, but money certainly makes it easier to become happier - for the majority of people anyway.

Personally I want to become wealthy, as I could buy things I want with my wealth: a hot Russian wife, prostitutes, servants, huge mansions and some useless - but cool - materialistic crap.

I would have to say Acquiring More money, or a raise or something, might temporarily raise your happiness. I read something about this some time ago. If you get a raise, you are happy, then in a year or two, it&#39;s become &#39;normal&#39;.

It isn&#39;t about the quantity. Actually, couldn&#39;t one better be born poor, so one can enjoy getting rich? People that are born rich can never enjoy becoming rich.

Anyhow, even then: once the money-flow is stable, and it is sufficient to live properly, it really matters quite little. Just look at America: Incredibly rich, but selling Incredibly much prozac and anti-depression drugs. Maybe Chaos was it I believe, is right: All this materialism makes us Less happy. I rather love a sunset very much then loving a BMW very much, one of them is limitless and never gets boring.

Money is like air; it won&#39;t make you happy, but the lack of it will be uncomfortable.

Money does make you happy, if I had a lot of money I would be very happy.

If someone gave you &#036;100,000,000,000,000 you would be happy.
That doesn&#39;t mean it&#39;s the only way you can become happy.

Originally Posted by Pyrofan1

Money does make you happy, if I had a lot of money I would be very happy.[/b]

So, if you had a lot of money, and you were able to buy all the things that money can buy (which, really, excludes "true" friendship, "true" love, and a child that "truely" loves you) you would be happy for the rest of your life?

Happiness is a state of mind, as many here have already said.

Oddly, I hate what money does to people so much that one of my dreams is to win the lottery, get it all in cash, and burn it. How liberating that would feel. Of course that would be right before they sent me to jail, lol.

I could be rich if I wanted. If that were a goal of mine I would simply work hard and do what it takes to get rich, but it is a complete waste of time to me. I prefer to look inward for answers. Money is a means for survival. It&#39;s only value to me is for buying back my time. The most depressing, (and what was later revealed as the most important) realization of my life was when I realized that college, work, career, money, all of this crap people spend their lives trying to attain, would never make me happy, and was a waste of energy. This is not the case for everyone of course, but for me it is.

...and Chaos your avatar rules.

f3if3i, if this was just a way to spam your affiliate website, it&#39;s not cool. I think it is pretty messed up to make false claims about things such as The buddha and Jesus to get people to earn you money. Just because some people are ignorant, does not give you the right to exploit them. If I am in error, then sorry.

Edit: Yeah looks like I was right. Please stop spamming the forums with this crap.

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

Money is like air; it won&#39;t make you happy, but the lack of it will be uncomfortable.[/b]

Hahaha, Yes.


(and actually, like with air/oxygen dificiency, like when on a high mountain, your body gets used to it. Same as with money. Unless if you climb the everest, but only bums and such climb the everest of money-deficiency.)

Originally Posted by Neruo

(and actually, like with air/oxygen dificiency, like when on a high mountain, your body gets used to it. Same as with money. Unless if you climb the everest, but only bums and such climb the everest of money-deficiency.)[/b]

Yes, adaptation is possible. Altho avoiding work is a lot of trouble; I think the easier way out is just to get up and go; but some would argue that.

P.S. To each their own.

So, if you had a lot of money, and you were able to buy all the things that money can buy (which, really, excludes "true" friendship, "true" love, and a child that "truely" loves you) you would be happy for the rest of your life?[/b]

Yes, I would be very happy.

My take on it is, for the most part, if you have a certain amount of money, and you go to change jobs, it&#39;s very rare to accept an offer for LESS money, unless you&#39;re highly unhappy in your current position (think Office Space). It&#39;s sticky that way. And the reason for this is, if you have a decent amount of money, then as long as you&#39;re not a complete idiot, the vast majority of this money is invested. For instance, once I could afford it, I bought myself a condo. But to sustain that, you need the money.

Now, if I were to do something that would lower my salary (say down to 2/3 what it is), then I&#39;d be in trouble. I&#39;d have to sell my place, move into a crappy apartment that&#39;s small enough that I&#39;d have to sell large chunks of my furniture... and doing all those things would cause some unhappiness. It&#39;s not HAVING the money, it&#39;s the repercussions of CHANGE. If you can live comfortably on your money, in a sustainable manner, and you know you can make a good future for your kids, then I think you meet the prerequisites of happiness. You don&#39;t need ridiculous "sports star" money, but just enough that you can live a decent enough lifestyle that you can live without worrying about money. Because let&#39;s face it, if you live month-to-month, then that extra stress can&#39;t possibly be a source of happiness.

Whether you have a comfy amount of money, or LOTS of money doesn&#39;t, IMO, change your happiness (unless, again, if your money goes up and then way down). At that point, I find whatever you have passion for takes over. If you have no personal mountain to climb (no more accomplishments to get into), you will be bored and unhappy. And if you have nobody to share your successes and failures with, you will also be unhappy.