Written by: Yusra Faheem, Edited by: Malavika Ram
Created by: Ayse Ece Ozgoren
“Would you rather be sad and rich, or happy and poor?” I’d reckon nearly everyone reading this article has heard that question at least once in their lives, starting from around elementary school, when we weren’t even caught up with materialistic things the way we may be now. The question poses an intriguing dilemma, one that brings our priorities into question. I mean, practically everyone believes that money brings happiness and may even be happiness itself, until they experience being rich themselves and see that the happiness didn’t follow.; they’re still majorly unhappy.
This almost immediate association of happiness with riches is exactly why people feel stunned when they see others without financial wealth who still have immense happiness in their lives. Our minds cannot comprehend that they feel emotionally secure in such a positive way while we are tied by our dependence on money to get us happiness. What we do not see is the cycle behind it. Subconsciously, we are all aware that the end goal is happiness and not a fortune. In the minds of ordinary people, the thinking process is something like this:
Step 1: Acquire more money
Step 2: Enjoy the happiness it brings you
What we do not realize is that money doesn’t cause long-term gratification and cannot be the cause of this feeling of euphoria as many people with little money have already reached the end goal without ever acquiring the wealth. Without further reflection and the clear vision of what we really are trying to achieve, we get lost in the mentality that material wealth is what will get us happiness and not realizing that it is our thinking process that is flawed.
Part of it comes from the idealization of public figures such as celebrities, athletes, politicians and businessmen, almost all of whom have more money than they will ever spend, and some of whom have so much money that they couldn’t spend it all if they wanted to. The chase after riches ends up tiring most, and making them lose sight of the reason they went on this journey in the first place: the satisfaction they wanted in their lives. Perhaps they did have a few rare moments of exhilaration and glee but what we humans desire is not this momentary delight, no matter how good it may feel in the moment, but rather contentment. We want to feel fulfilled in our lives and bask in the gratification and tranquility. We do not realize that the individuals we look up to who seem to be rolling in money don’t have this feeling either.
Isn’t it strange how rich people only want to get richer? Most think of it as greed and perhaps it is, but it is crucial to think that they too may be lost, just like us. After all, there is no exact moment where you are given the gift of happiness as a reward for all the money you now have. These people may think “maybe a little more money and I'll finally feel the satisfaction I was told I’d get”. When they at last, feel the jolt back to reality that tells them this is never going to happen, they feel cheated and lied to, not realizing they did this to themselves. This could potentially lead to a state of madness resulting in either overspending or wanting to be in possession of more and more wealth, to which there is no end.
It is worth noting that no genuine emotion that humans feel can truly be bought with money. The aforementioned tranquility and fulfilment cannot be bought, but neither can someone else’s loyalty of one person to another and genuine affection.
If you bought into the lifestyle capitalism portrays as “perfect” and ultimately got yourself an attractive partner because it was yet another thing you had the luxury of ‘being able to afford’, your partner would leave you in a heartbeat for someone who was significantly wealthier than you, given that that is the kind of materialistic mindset that they have. And even if they do not, that doubt is always present within your mind and secretly nags at you, never really allowing you to be at peace, even during the highest of the highs, the most beautiful moments of your relationship. The idea of them with another person who is better off than you would never leave your mind, leaving you to always question, “Why are they even with me? Is it really me or the lifestyle I give them?” The same will then apply to all the new people you meet along the way. If you were to make a new connection with a friend or acquaintance or family relative, you would never know whether it is real or whether they have ulterior motives and are only now interested in you for your wealth. If everyone can collectively agree that the people in our life contribute, in some way or another, to the happiness we feel, then we would lose the ability to truly experience that feeling like that in another situation, where we follow through with accumulating wealth.
We must realize that no authentic emotion that humans are capable of feeling and expressing is a result of money, but rather stems from the joy we find in the things that are already present, which ultimately lead to our happiness. As corny as it sounds, heartfelt laughter and the joy that comes from true companionship are only a few of the things that no amount of riches will be able to get you.
The next obvious argument is the acceptance that money cannot buy you this state of ebullience, but it can at least fix all the problems you may face. Again, this is our mind’s refusal of accepting that money is not as important as we are taught to believe. The most extreme example of how this is not possible is the fact that no matter how much money you have, it will not bring back loved ones you may have lost as we’ll never be able to buy the power to raise the dead. Some things will continue to be out of our control and money cannot buy us the power to change certain things that we so desperately want.
All we can do is change our approach and mindset, and continue to look for joy elsewhere. Right now, you may be thinking this doesn’t apply to you and is therefore untrue, but most of us still think more money would make us happy, because the biggest problems in our lives right now are there as a cause of lack of financial freedom. What we do not realize is that, say we do get the money, our problems will not disappear, they will simply change, but even then, the level of difficulty of those problems will not decrease and will most likely do the opposite and become too much for us to handle.
But alright, some people in life have been able to get both happiness and money and sustain these two things, but you must rest assured that their wealth was certainly not the cause of the arrival of the authentic delight and pleasure in their lives.
Ronald Reagan, who was president of the United States quite a long time ago once said that “Money can’t buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories.” I, for one, when I look back at the best memories of my life, do not think of where those memories were formed or what material things were in my possession at that moment. In fact , I can’t even remember them. What sticks in the mind is the people you were surrounded by, the feelings you felt at that particular moment and the situation taking course. There exists nothing but that moment, so the memories you make and the quality of them are not reliant on how luxurious the setting of the memory was or the items you may have possessed at that time.
On a more positive note, we must remember that the hold of capitalism extends to everyone in this system and we must interact with people from all financial and ethnic backgrounds, understand the struggles of others and see how life is a challenge for everyone in order to fully grasp the concept of truly understanding that there is no one-time solution to this. Overworking ourselves and attempting to make more than we could ever need is also foolish and there will certainly be no real gain there. If we don’t stop and just focus on existing, happiness and contentment will never follow.
After all, joy is too strong of an emotion to be bought.
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