Life, Liberty, and the Purchase of Happiness by Haley Mitchell
The definition of the word “happy”, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment.” I find that we derive this pleasure from everything and everyone we encounter, but the majority of the populus has a mistaken belief that wealth is the “Golden Ticket” to achieving everlasting happiness. “Could money buy you happiness?” David G. Meyers poses this question in his article, “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People.” Meyers explains that The University of Michigan conducted surveys asking people if more money would make them “happier”. Most frequently they replied yes and imagined “the good life” that would become possible with greater wealth. However, Meyers discovered that the correlation between “income and personal happiness is surprisingly weak”, because those with lower incomes are just as happy as those who have higher incomes. …show more content…
Instead of adding to our happiness, it actually detracts from it. We become so focused on earning money that these leisure activities get pushed to the side in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Mark Slouka’s article, “Quitting the Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness” praises being unoccupied and inactive, “It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once,” Slouka says. He warns of the dangers resulting from the constant striving to attain excessive money and success, and he encourages those who, like himself, take time out of their day to detox, re-energize, and hold on to their
The definition of the word “happy”, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary is “showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment.” I find that we derive this pleasure from everything and everyone we encounter, but the majority of the populus has a mistaken belief that wealth is the “Golden Ticket” to achieving everlasting happiness. “Could money buy you happiness?” David G. Meyers poses this question in his article, “The Funds, Friends, and Faith of Happy People.” Meyers explains that The University of Michigan conducted surveys asking people if more money would make them “happier”. Most frequently they replied yes and imagined “the good life” that would become possible with greater wealth. However, Meyers discovered that the correlation between “income and personal happiness is surprisingly weak”, because those with lower incomes are just as happy as those who have higher incomes. …show more content…
Instead of adding to our happiness, it actually detracts from it. We become so focused on earning money that these leisure activities get pushed to the side in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. Mark Slouka’s article, “Quitting the Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness” praises being unoccupied and inactive, “It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once,” Slouka says. He warns of the dangers resulting from the constant striving to attain excessive money and success, and he encourages those who, like himself, take time out of their day to detox, re-energize, and hold on to their