The title I completely agree with. I was arguing with another member in ask/tell me about so I was suggested to make a thread here.
Your thoughts/opinions?
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The title I completely agree with. I was arguing with another member in ask/tell me about so I was suggested to make a thread here.
Your thoughts/opinions?
Money cannot give you happiness whatsoever. Anyway, it's not money you seek, it's the things money can buy you. There are plenty of millionaires who have killed themselves/committed theft/turned to a life of drinking/drugs and crime but apparently had more money than they could have asked for. In my opinion, money should be used to help others less fortunate...that's why it's important money be in the "right" hands. That's why it's important for those who understand that to acquire great sums of money and continue to put it to good use for the betterment of mankind. After all...when you die...people don't give a shit about what your bank account figures were...they only care about what you did for humanity.
Right.... I guess I didn't make myself clear, it's the things you can do with money.... and that's why I think having enough money can give you ultimate happiness.
Like you said, whether it's helping people, purchasing things, or whatever... IMO money is the most powerful force in the world, and can get you whatever you desire.
So this is a thread essentially about materialism and superficiality being the be all and end all of happiness?
Money has many purposes, and is great no doubt. I for one am fascinated with lamborghini's, mansions, and the bachelor lifestyle...but I know it's passing. I'm beginning to find out the best gift you can give to yourself is giving to others (especially if you give in secret). Anyway, money itself is a tool to be used any way you want...some uses wiser than others. I myself am guilty of unnecessary spending. But my thoughts remain the same...money is a tool to be used to aid mankind and make things for mankind better than they were before you arrived. :)
Hi! :P
Yes, well I think that you don't need money for ultimate happiness. It all comes down to personal beliefs and upbringing. In the other thread, I was just trying to figure out why you would need money if you could just get the happiness directly. Don't ask me how, I guess I considered this a theoretical question. My logic was that if you choose Money as an ultimate goal you might be happy, but if you choose happines as your ultimate goal you could say that you "win at life" (if you achieve this goal).
Are you going to say why that is a bad thing, and come up with an argument, or are you just going to be arrogant and condescending?
I just love money... I find myself fascinated by it. I have been told this is bad my whole life, but I can't see why....
Like you said, with money you can do whatever makes you happy... like giving it away, which is a very selfless thing, Jeff.:)
Oh and sorry for missing you in chat a few days ago...:P I would like to discuss that topic with you.
Grod, I'm curious...(I asked you this before in another thread but I don't recall you answering) how are you going to go about becoming the world's richest man?
Money doesn't mean happieness, and I'm not saying that for a "goody goody" reason. The mind naturally stabalises once a new lifestyle does. You've all noticed this in one way or another; some kind of evening club you went to that got boring, songs that lose their thrill, madness when nothing in the world changes (for me!). Sure it would be good to be rich for a week but a rich lifestyle would end up killing you with boredom as there wouldn't be anything better to look foreward to.
Adaptation to life events and the resulting conclusion is that happiness is a process rather than a place.
The data and methods used from the Journal of Epidemiology suggest that in contrast to living states such as ‘being married’, it is more events such as ‘starting a new relationship’ that have the highest positive effect on happiness. This is closely followed by ‘employment-related gains’ (in contrast to employment status). Also, women who become pregnant on average report higher than average levels of subjective happiness (in contrast to ‘being a parent’). Other events that appear to be associated with happiness according to our analysis include ‘personal education-related events’ (e.g. starting a new course, graduating from University, passing exams) and ‘finance/house related events’ (e.g. buying a new house). On the other hand, the event that has the highest negative impact upon happiness according to our analysis is ‘the end of my relationship’ closely followed by ‘death of a parent’. Adverse health events pertaining to the parents of the respondents also have a high negative coefficient and so does an employment-related loss.
The measurement of something as intangible as subjective well-being (SWB) is not without difficulties. Schwarz & Stack (1999) have shown, for example, that temporary mood states can influence a participant’s response to SWB measures. However others have shown that temporary moods have only a marginal effect on SWB responses when compared to longer-term influences (Eid & Diener,1999). It has also been shown the long-term changes to an individuals circumstances can affect levels of SWB (countering the suggestion that SWB is biologically determined). Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman (1978) showed that lottery winners were significantly happier than controls, and controls were happier than people who had recently become paraplegics (although the effect was insufficient to reject the null hypothesis due to a small sample size). As such it has been shown that temporary mood states have only a marginal effect on SWB, whilst long term changes and situational factors have a significant effect on SWB.
In 1978, a team of psychologists from Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study (Vol. 35, No. 8, pages 917–927) that found lottery winners were not significantly happier than control-group participants and that patients with spinal-cord injuries "did not appear nearly as unhappy as might be expected." Ever since then, many in psychological and social science circles have taken for granted that people return to a relatively stable "happiness set point," even after seemingly life-changing events.
Hedonic adaptation refers to the process by which individuals return to baseline levels of happiness following a change in life circumstances. Dominant models of subjective well-being (SWB) suggest that people can adapt to almost any life event and that happiness levels fluctuate around a biologically determined set point that rarely changes. Recent evidence from large-scale panel studies challenges aspects of this conclusion. Although inborn factors certainly matter and some adaptation does occur, events such as divorce, death of a spouse, unemployment, and disability are associated with lasting changes in SWB. These recent studies also show that there are considerable individual differences in the extent to which people adapt. Thus, happiness levels do change, and adaptation is not inevitable.
References:
+ Ed Diener. (2004). The Nonobvious Social Psychology of Happiness. Retrieved from: http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/h...nonobvious.htm
+ Ballas, B., Dorling, D. (2007). Measuring the effects of major events on happiness. Journal of Epidemiology. Retrieved from: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ract/36/6/1244
+ White, A. (2007). A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html
+ American Psychological Assocation; Online. (2007) Is our happiness set in stone? Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec07/happiness.html
+ Lucas, R. (2007) Adaptation and the Set-Point Model of Subjective Well-Being: Does Happiness Change After Major Life Events?. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Retrieved from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...urnalCode=cdir
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My dog is very sick.
All the money in the world will not make me happy at this moment.
It is hard to beleive anyone would fail to recognize the many examples that money could not sustain happiness.
Money cannot produce cures for diseases.
It can be seen as incentive, but it is not the cause of. One can find a cure without money. Literally, people always find cures without money. (It would certainly be nice to simply pay cancer $100 and it would go away, however.)
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Ok I do think money can bring ultimate happiness, but are we talking about end products here, then it kind of goes further, see with money you can only make so much happy events in your life come true, but if we choose for a miricule to become the end product something that money can't make happen, then I soppose the latter could bring more happiness.
Now I don't agree with those of you who say money doesn't bring happiness, but I do agree that a miricule if it were the end product, can be better then anything money can bring.
And I most admit, love can be bought, if the person you love likes money alot, they would be more persuaded, but you can't really make them have a chemical attraction always, I beleive it's possible to build a chemical attraction to alot of people, I don't know I'm not a scientist, nor do I have any personal knowlege about what true love feels like.
heh, you qouted my unupdated post, well yeah I changed it alot, because I wasn't sure how to exlain what I ment, but yes there are things that can make you happier then money. Specualy the instant lucid ability :D
When all is said and done, can it get you the undeniability that the people you find yourself surrounded with don't only associate with you because you've got mad money, and they are basically pimping you for your charity?
If someone gave you the world, would you want to be the only one in it? And if you weren't, would you want to be surrounded only by people who don't really care anything about you?
Few (hopefully) people would say "who cares? I'm rich, bitch!!" but, if this is your reaction, maybe it would say less about the power of money than the shallowness of yourself.
That's very interesting, O'nus....
I'm not really sure which side that is on, but I think it could argue for either way. For my side(Wealth and using it effectively = happiness) I think the above holds true because you continually can become more happy and successful ( a continuing process) and happiness is not a single state. Wealth can make you happy if you use it right, and I don't think that simply being wealthy will automatically make you happy. You have to use it to your advantage.
If I missed the point of that, please tell me, I may be in over my head.
Well, I wouldn't hang with people like that. I consider myself a pretty good judge of character, and if someone was just pimping off of me, I wouldn't want to associate with them. Why would I want to, anyway, if I could just be with my friends and family? I am not exactly the wealthiest person in the world as of now, and I still have friends. I think that shows that they don't hang out with me for my money. ( Or lack of ) Why would that change if I made it?
I don't follow. When did I describe that?
I explained that above.... if not, just ask....
I definitely wouldn't say that. Personally, I feel that with enough money, you can change the world and give yourself ultimate happiness. If I became the richest person in the world, I wouldn't use my money only for myself, because you're right, that would be extremely shallow and egotistical. I can think of all the things I could use it for, and I think you'll agree not all of them are shallow. I could use it have the funds, supplies, and help to cure Cancer, Aids, Cerebral Palsy, and probably any disease you can think of. I could help the poor, the diseased and the needy. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't use a great deal for myself, but with enough money you can wield the influence and have the power to change the world, in virtually any way you want.
There is always the chance that you will not have your present circle of friends, for all time. What then? People die, people move on. They move out of state or start their own lives, in which you may not always have the amount of time with them that you presently have. What, then, about the prospects of new friends? If you were surrounded by strangers, after falling into your new money? In my experience, there are many more gold-diggers than there are good, honest, moral people. If the circle of people that you surround yourself with, now, begins to dwindle, is money more valuable than chemistry? Is it more valuable than the connection that you shared with those people, and the knowledge that they liked you for you, when you didn't have money? Can it replace that friendship/kinship, substantially, with people who know you have money, when you meet them - taking into account the chance that they are only trying to get close to you because you're rich and friendly?
It was just a metaphor, outlining my initial point. Picture yourself, 30 years from now. You may not even have contact with the people that you know, by then. If money is the most powerful force in the world, could it adequately substitute the unconditional bond that you have with your loved ones, right now? If you were to become a multi-billionaire, right now, and all of your loved ones died or moved on, within the next 6 years, how much stronger is money than that bond you had with those people? You are now (metaphorically) "alone." The last of the people that knew you for you, before you were a possible financial asset, has long gone. Is money more powerful, or more important, than those bonds you have lost?
Those are good objectives that you listed, but remember that happiness is subjective. Different things make different people happy. Believe it or not, there are people that live in relative poverty that have achieved "ultimate happiness." It is all a matter of perspective. Is a rich man with hardly any true friends (hypothetically) or a real, unconditional, loving relationship any more ultimately happy than a poor person with the most sincere present relationships and the ability to attract more affection, from practically everyone he meets, without his bank account being a factor in those relationships? If so, how do you determine this?