If you were to wake up as a billionaire tomorrow, would you be happy forever? Or would your happiness only be temporary? It seems that the people who are in the position to buy happiness always exclaim how they can’t buy it with money. Whereas, the people who aren’t millionaires, billionaires, or just as fortunate, have argued that happiness in fact, can be bought.
If you ask your favorite celebrity in what way has money affected them, you’d likely get a mixture of positive and negative responses. A compromise of each answer would likely be something along the lines of money has enabled them to live the lifestyle that they’ve always wanted, but it hasn’t been able to completely eradicate all of their problems. Or the happiness that money once brought them has long faded away after they became acclimated to being able to have such freedom.
In fact, a lot of public figures have discussed that money brings even more problems, both financially and mentally. You’d have to pay more in taxes, have much more responsibilities, and have to learn how to efficiently control your income/spending to maintain such a lavish lifestyle. Of course, these are all things and responsibilities we have no matter how much your income is, but having such a large sum can make these things ten times more difficult.
If you look at people such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Beyonce and Jay Z, they, for the most part, can buy anything that they’d ever desire. One important question for people that argue that money can buy happiness, is what would you be able to do with such a large sum of money? You could buy a house, a nice car, a new wardrobe and many other things. But what would happen after you’ve bought all of those things? It could either mean the end of your happiness, or it will result in unnecessary spending in an attempt to fill each void in your life.
I asked multiple people whether or not money could buy them happiness, and each response was a definite yes. But is this only because they aren’t currently in the position that people like Jeff Bezos are, or is it because it truly can buy happiness? A lot of public figures are not as happy as they may appear. In fact, such fortune has caused some of these figures to drugs, and even suicide from such stress. So, it would be very unfair to say that money will undoubtedly buy your happiness.
My answer to the question is that money can’t necessarily keep you happy, but it can do numerous things to make you happy. If someone had the opportunity to get rid of all of their financial debt and buy anything they’d ever want, it would give them some form of pleasure. But as previously questioned, what happens after you have long ago received everything you’ve ever wanted, and are accustomed to being in such a position?
There doesn’t have to be only one definite answer to whether or not money can buy happiness. Because the answer to this question can vary, and if you were to ask a group of people, it’s likely you’d get a handful of different answers which makes the question even more impossible to answer. But if we want to attempt to answer this question more accurately, we’d have to have experienced it from both the fortunate and unfortunate’s position.
