For many years people have been debating whether or not money can buy you happiness and there are many people in both corners. A lengthy thread on Quora has revealed that many people strongly believe that money does indeed buy you happiness.
There are some people that acknowledge that money is a tool to buy materialistic items which give you a sense of happiness for a period of time, there is also an individual who had a lengthy comment on the post where they detail how the initial goal changes according to the amount of money you have.
The question then remains, can money buy you happiness, and if the answer is really NO then what do people like Bill Gates do to make themselves happy or are they just naturally happy because they are so wealthy?
Look at money as pieces of green paper that give you the power to minimize your stress and focus on other areas of your life which in turn will make you happy. If you have debt problems and you not able to buy your child a new bicycle for their birthday this can indeed make you unhappy, but having no debt and being able to save money towards a weekend vacation at Disney world for your child’s birthday will make everyone extremely happy.
Another valid point made is that money spent on other people makes you happier than money you spend on yourself, memories made by making other people happy makes you happy for longer than that new suite you bought because you were feeling down.
To motivate yourself onto a path of eternal happiness you need to assess your situation and then devise a plan of action and set goals. If you only earning £1,000 a month and you have debts that you are paying off and you battling to make ends meet on your household income, your first plan of action should be to minimize your spending so that you have money to pay on the debts and your goal would be to become debt free.
Each person is unique and has their own opinion on what true happiness is, perhaps you are one that would be happy just knowing that you are debt free and your house is your own, alleviating stress of having to move at some point and knowing that you don’t owe anyone money could make you feel extremely happy, allowing you to focus on something else, like that Disney world holiday and working towards it will give you a sense of achievement and happiness all rolled into one.
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