Reaction Paper 2 - Happiness assignment 2 PDF

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Taveras 1

Happiness Assignment 2 Alexander Taveras Professor Jeffrey Froh October 7, 2015

Taveras 2 Today’s society makes it seem that money and happiness go hand-in-hand. At first glance at the relationship between money and happiness we might think that money may help happiness indeed. The question though is, can money truly buy happiness? It was interesting to interview a few friends, coworkers, and family members on this topic. Overall it seems as if they agree that this conventional wisdom has prevailed, but most of them gave a good deal of insight into why the idea of money buying happiness is not necessarily true. The first interview I did was with a girl I work with, Kylie, who is only 16 years old so I figured her opinion might be different than others. Her opinion was, “If you have money you can buy things that make you happy, so people who have money are probably happier.” I believe this to be a very common idea for people on the surface level because today’s society is very materialistic. Due to the fact that she was so young she did not have such a strong opinion to back up her argument or have much to say about the research. My next interview was with my friend, Johanna, who gave a great perspective on the topic. She said, “money can make you happy but to a certain extent”. I found this to be an overarching theme in most of my other interviews as well. She believes that she could be a millionaire but if her parents, sisters, husband, or a loved one died all of the money in the world could not replace those relationships. This seems to go along with the research that shows how important relationships are in our lives. Our social relationships are a key part of our happiness. Johanna is someone who recognizes that relationships have to do with happiness as opposed to money. My boyfriend, Alex, said that people with money cannot find these genuine relationships because people are always after their

Taveras 3 money. If they do not have these trusting relationships than it seems hard for them to be happy. Johanna also believes only you can dig inside to find what makes you happy and money is not that. When explaining the research about savoring to her she shared some of her personal experiences because she did not grow up with money and struggled. Now she finds herself working hard and appreciating all of the things she could not have when she was younger. She does not believe that everyone with money is spoiled but when you do not have a lot of money you appreciate the little things you can get. This seems to go along with the research because those with money do not savor what they have in their life as much as people who do not have money. Johanna’s example was of those who’s parents pay for school for them and they go to school just to party and not focus, where she has to pay for her school and makes sure she focuses on getting an education. My third interview was with my boss who started off by saying “money is the root of all evil.” He believes that there are more problems in life because of money or the lack of. Money helps, even though some deny it, but those who do not have it have more problems. He claims that most of his friends with money do not have that many problems. I asked him if he believed that they were actually happy and he said only some. This was when I explained to him how those with money do not savor and he agreed completely giving me a good example. He said that when he was younger his friend got a brand new Camaro but he got a cheap car for a few thousand dollars that he loved and drove everywhere. Within the year his friend did not want the Camaro and got a brand new Corvette, but he always appreciated his affordable car. He believes that it is true we can savor smaller pleasures in life where they only look at the expensive material things.

Taveras 4 When I interviewed my mom, she had some similar opinions about money causing problems. She said that money causes unhappiness because people get stressed. People have to constantly worry about money so they cannot be happy. She herself does not need money to be happy but sadly some people do. Also that it cannot make you happy but it can cause less stress. I believe that the idea of money making you happy is not true but it is true that it can take stress away from you if money was something that you did not have. Many of the stressors we have in life come about if we cannot provide the necessities for our families and ourselves. Although money might not make us happy, it does help us live much more comfortably. I think for many of us, including those that I interviewed, when you do not come from a family who has money it is hard to be objective on the idea that money does not buy happiness. When you stress because you do not have money, you see that money is a necessity. Although it is a necessity, it does not mean that we will be necessarily happy. Another friend, Michelle, said that it could make you happy until a certain point, which is when you can live comfortably. This is exactly what the research says because after you make more than $75,000 it does not affect you anymore. Overall this shows the idea that we do need money in order to eliminate the stress it causes in today’s society but it does not determine our happiness. My friends also talked about those who have a large amount of money and how they do not seem happy. Again, once you pass the $75,000 salary it does not affect your happiness and therefore those with much more money seem to be the opposite of happy. Alex said that you see people with nothing but money and they are never content with their lives, always wanting more. My coworker, Bobby, stated that he thinks people with a lot of money seem to be the loneliest, e.g. in Great Gatsby. They may have all of the

Taveras 5 money in the world but that does not give them the key ingredients to happiness. As we have discussed according to Diener, these ingredients include: social relationships, positive mental attitude, realizing that money is not key, and having important goals and values that matter to you. In fact, right there it is stated that money is not key. As shown before in Johanna and Randy’s examples, those without money savor life’s pleasures. It is to be believed that you can be more appreciative of the little things in life. Bobby gave a good example about his friend who has had the same leather jacket for years but will never take it off no matter how many rips it has because it is his favorite and he is glad to have it. It also seems that people without money tend to have different values. They value the things that they can afford but they also tend to be generous to others when they cannot afford it. For example, my mom believes that people who do not have money tend to spend money on others because she does this herself. Even when she does not have the money she will spend on others because she loves to see them happy. Michelle gave an example of the last time she spent money on someone else and how it made her feel much happier than when she spent it on herself. This goes along with the research that showed how people are happier spending on others. Each interview provided insight into the relationship between money and happiness in its own way with a personal touch. Although some opinions may have differed, I believe that they all touched upon some key points on this relationship that did not go along with the conventional wisdom. These points include: money can help alleviate financial stress, money is not as important as our relationships, people without money appreciate the little things in life, spending money on others makes you happier, and overall they believed money does not equal happiness....