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More money will NEVER solve your problems That just isn't true - the problem is that people realised that being rich isn't the same as being happy, and it was

• vacri 15y ago
  I believe what he means by this is part "more money will not solve ALL your problems" (ie: it's not a panacaea) and part "if you have food and shelter, everything else is a form of luxury". If you require a car to provide food and shelter, then I don't think that what he's said is invalid.
  • corin_ 15y ago
    Sure a lot of things in life are luxuries, but that doesn't mean they are bad, and often can still solve problems. "My feet hurt all day" might get solved by buying a fairly expensive pair of shoes, for example. Will winning the lottery give you the perfect life? Doubtful. Can money solve many problems and improve your life in other ways? Very often.
    • jonnathanson 15y ago
      As an interesting corollary, it's actually a longitudinally studied and extensively documented fact that winning the lottery does not provide long-term happiness. More often than not, it actually causes more problems than it solves. I forget the statistic off the top of my head, but some astounding percentage of lottery winners -- let's say 75% -- end up worse off within 5 years of winning than they were before they won. (Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the type of person most likely to be playing the lottery is also the type of person who has no real concept of the value of how to manage a $XXX million fortune, let alone a $XXX million fortune acquired literally overnight).
      • ido 15y ago
        Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the type of person most likely to be playing the lottery is also the type of person who has no real concept of the value of how to manage a $XXX million fortune, let alone a $XXX million fortune acquired literally overnight That's it - I (anecdotaly) know several people who won the "internet start up lottery" (gotten very, very wealthy due to their start-ups doing well) and all of them are doing alright years after "winning the lottery".
  • irishpolyglot 15y ago
    I'm the author and I agree with Vacri's interpretation.
• lemming 15y ago
  Maybe so, but it really is demonstrably true that there's a huge law of diminishing returns there. Once you earn a reasonable amount of money (the figure I saw for the US was around 50k, probably depreciated by now and obviously location-dependent) there is absolutely no correlation between making more money and happiness. The main take-away is that it probably requires a lot less than you think. For this and many other interesting musings on the nature of happiness I strongly recommend "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. It's fascinating.
  • corin_ 15y ago
    There's a big difference between "once you have a home and food" and "once you have 50k/yr", though.
    • lemming 15y ago
      Absolutely. A lot of people don't plan to stop at 50k/yr either, though - the OP's main point is that from a happiness optimisation POV after that point (or maybe earlier) their energy would be better spent elsewhere. And your expensive shoes example person is probably making more than 50k.
• lhnz 15y ago
  You can't spend 8 years traveling the world without quite a bit of money. The author should look at his own life before telling others that they don't need money; it sounds like luxury to me.
  • aik 15y ago
    The author addresses that exact point in his article. Take a look -- apparently he has no money.
  • sanswork 15y ago
    Sure you can. Travel needs not be expensive. If you don't stay in expensive hotels and eat out all the time, don't go drinking/partying every night its not difficult to travel on very little money. Move to a new country with a work permit, get a short term job, maybe working in your hostel, or at a bar, or even as general labour and save up enough to make your next hop.
    • eyko 15y ago
      I think you'll find it's not that easy to move to a new country with a work permit, unless you have a lot of money in your bank account (which is one of the first checks the embassies do), or you're of the wrong nationality (try entering europe being african). Yeah, try telling a starving child labourer in Honduras or South Africa that money will not solve any of their problems. Maybe you can travel hitch-hiking and getting to stay in people's places… I've done that in some parts of europe, but there's nothing like a pillow of cash to help you through the day.
      • sanswork 15y ago
        If you're young and from the right countries it's very simple. It's called a working holiday visa. Usually gives you around a year to work and live in the destination country.
    • lhnz 15y ago
      I am being downvoted above but isn't travel expensive? It has to be simply because of the fuel costs involved. In my eyes, 8 years of constant travel would be expensive. Compare that to 8 years of working on the same spot.
• ristretto 15y ago
  Agree - as long as money buys you time, it's valuable, because time is the only truly limited resource we have. From a certain income level and up, though, there is very little gain in happiness, so i find the western world's fascination with very rich people absurd.
• rglover 15y ago
  You make a good point and it comes down to the parallel between the people who have money and the people who don't. For those who already have money, they view it as a standard, something they're used to and believe that their happiness comes from something else. For those who don't, not being able to pay a bill, having a good car to get back and forth to work, or being able to treat your kids to a movie and ice cream can significantly impact your happiness. Everyone says that money has nothing to do with it, but you're right, it does. Perhaps from a cosmic "we are floating in space" point of view, but in a human, "we run on money" view, there's significant happiness found in having money. That being said, I think the concept of money and having or not having it is a great topic for debate. It's one of those things that most would love to detest, but in reality, they realize they only way they're going to be able to detest it (short of being homeless) is to make money. It sucks, it's dehumanizing, and it shouldn't be that way, but it is.
• rglover 15y ago
  You make a good point and it comes down to the parallel between the people who have money and the people who don't. For those who already have money, they view it as a standard, something they're used to and believe that their happiness comes from something else. For those who don't, not being able to pay a bill, having a good car to get back and forth to work, or being able to treat your kids to a movie and ice cream can significantly impact your happiness. Everyone says that money has nothing to do with it, but you're right, it does. Perhaps from a cosmic "we are floating in space" point of view it doesn't, but in a human, "we run on money" view, there's significant happiness found in actually having money. That being said, I think the concept of money and having or not having it is a great topic for debate. It's one of those things that most would love to detest, but in reality, they realize they only way they're going to be able to detest it (short of being homeless) is to make money. It sucks, it's dehumanizing, and it shouldn't be that way, but it is.
• rapind 15y ago
  In the end it's all relative to your expectations. For example let's take 2 different people; "A" and "B". "A" has rich parents (few hundred million). "A" has rich friends. "A" enjoys expensive past-times. "A" currently lives off around $1,000,000 per year (mortgage, food, entertainment, etc.). Most of "A"'s associates have a similar lifestyle. If "A" loses all of his money and is forced to take a job at $150,000 a year then he'll be absolutely miserable. He'll feel poor because all his friends and associates have so much more, and because he's become accustomed to a way of life he can no longer afford. Now person "B" has a blue collar job, no savings, and makes $50,000 per year. "B"'s parents are not rich, but were always able to put food on the table. "B"'s friends and associates all live fairly similar lifestyles. If "B" is suddenly handed a magical supervisor role that pays $150,000 a year he'll feel absolutely rich. He'll have more money than any of his current associates. He has more money than he even knows what to do with. Both "A" and "B" now make the same amount of money, but "B" is happier than "A" and it has everything to do with expectations, and since they have the same amount of money, then money must not be a direct factor. You can keep taking this further until you hit a point where there's not enough money to cover bare necessities. This means that every single $ you make above the bare minimum to live a healthy life is unnecessary if you manage your expectations. For many of us it's easier to make more money than manage our expectations though. If you're barely scraping by on a $100,000 salary, maybe it's time to step back and examine your expectations and priorities.
  • impendia 15y ago
    +1, I think all of this is true and wise, but I will offer a contrasting perspective. I think it is good to have high expectations, not so much financially but in general. I was working a stable, dull job, had a quiet social life, and was reasonably happy and content. But I decided that I could be living much more. I quit my job, moved cross country, started and finished a Ph.D. program, got an academic job, and also got much more adventurous in my social life. Across the board, my life was characterized by a lot more hardship, failure, and painful exposure to things which I wanted but were out of reach. My life has been much, much better as a result. I am actually making much less money than I would be if I had kept on at my old job, but I raised my expectations relative to the life I was living, and this made all the difference.
• vbtemp 15y ago
  In other words, money is a necessary but not sufficient condition to be happy.