i don't think someone else can determine if money will make me happy or not. if one believes money will make them happy, then it will make them happy. on the other hand, if one believes money won't make them happy, then it won't make them happy (although i think either these people are lying to themselves or are already rich). some people have no hope of ever becoming prosperous. these people tell themselves that money won't make them happy, in an effort to eliminate the desire for prosperity and a better life - as preserving this desire will make them even more miserable.
Also remember if you don't have your health, money means little to you. It doesn't matter if you're broke. If you're healthy you can always start over in business. Health is an important cornerstone to wealth, if not the primary one. Sooo..if you're healthy, and you need some more money, be happy. Your chances of getting rich just improved!
I think there are more poor happy people in the world than rich happy people. A measure of proportions is needed. What % of poor people are happy vs % of reach people happy. Where do we draw the line of richness? In different regions in the world the line will vary. Also historically the line will very. A person on welfare toady with LCD, car, hot water etc... will be consider very reach and for sure happy few hundred ears ago.
Money only buys material things, the shine wears off. Having friends and family to enjoy it with is what would make it enjoyable for me anyway.
This is because of cognitive dissonance. People have two choices in life. Live up to their expectations, or lower their expectations to the life they live. Most people do the latter, claim they are happy, yet engage in massive passive aggressive behavior most of the time. Rich people have it so much better, which is why when one of them jumps off a bridge or ODs or something it makes such news. It's just like lottery winners, they r hyped up because it happens so rarely.
I asked my boss for a raise. He then went on to explain how the "raise" would not make me happy. The cliff notes on the lecture was basically this. On a scale of 0-10, a raise or increase in wealth should boost you up a few notches. Au contraire, the lack of money is off the scale into negative territory. Varying degrees of -1 or -2 or -3, when you get the raise, ah ha, we have now reached zero and again descend into the negative portion of the scale as time moves forward. I said "gimme the raise and let me continue on with my useless employement with your company". He did give me the raise, I left anyways, the fucker was right.
There is a comedian out there named Daniel Tosh. He has a reallly funny bit about this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V61U6kT9Qbo Start at 1:33. S
Roman Candle, when you posted this, what you were really saying was "Here's my belief." It's a belief no one else is required to subscribe to.
It's not how many things you have but what little things you need. If that describes you then I can assure you that you have a high probability of being happy.