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Money buys you food, medical care, a place to live, security, safety, and above all else, money buys you choice. If you have the security of money, you can quit a job and try something new, or just plain quit if your job is making you sick with stress. When it comes to food, you have the choice of buying the more expensive and better tasting or healthier item if you want. When it comes to housing, your choice can be one of where you will live and what amenities you want, instead of always having to take the cheapest place. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
There's a lot of stuff I want in this life, but if I had to make one choice, I'd choose to have money above anything else. In this time we're living in, money can buy everything else that I want. And I can guarantee you, a bag of money dropped in my lap right now would make me the happiest person on this forum.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I would say that money cannot buy happiness, but lack of it does increase the unhappiness. Having money does contribute to keeping you happy but things like family, friends and health are what make you happy.
Money buys happiness up to a certain income, I think. Once your money buys extravagance and luxuries, it can ruin relationships and be a detriment to yourself.
In many cases it can make people happy temporarily. Alls you have to do is look at entertainers,lottery winners, and other fields that make money for people and you find they are just like us with hopes,unfulfilled dreams,saddness,anger, depressions,failed marriages and you know money doesnt buy you happiness. Very ordinary people like many of us on this sight many times are the happier of the lot due to knowing our limits,truly loving those around us and being grateful for what we have and accepting the fact that not everyday will be a big party.
They did a study on this once. A longitudinal study on the self-reported "happiness" with one's life, correlated with how much money they had.
They found that up to a certain point (average working middle class income), money DID correlate with happiness. In other words, not having enough money to live relatively comfortably and provide for your loved ones can indeed prevent you from being happy.
Above that point, the correlation was lost. Being excessively rich did not necessarily make someone excessively happier.
So the take home is that money cannot buy you happiness, but the lack of money can create unnecessary unhappiness.
Edited to add: somehow I completely overlooked the fact that the study was linked in the OP. Whoops.
There are two thins in life that are important: Love, Health and Money. Any two will do, and make up for a shortfall in the other one. So, if you have Love and Health, you won't need money.
Money only buys security. Security is not foolproof.
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