MONEY MAKES ME HAPPY

I've had an ongoing debate with a dear friend  for a very long time that research has finally answered definitively.  I am, it says, WRONG. But as egotistical as this may sound in the face of compelling evidence, I'M NOT WRONG!

I contend that money cannot buy happiness - that one can be happy when poor and miserable when wealthy. My friend insists that the more money one has the happier he or she is. I KNOW I'm right. But...

A study was done by "The Wharton School"  (The Economy and You) that concludes that the more money you have the more satisfied you are with life - and that this holds true no matter what country or culture you are in. A University of California psychology professor says “Satisfaction increases when you feel you have more control over your life, and you have more control over your life if you have more financial resources.”

"Earlier studies  on money and happiness suggested that people were concerned only with the wealth of their next door neighbors. So, if you were keeping up with – or better yet, surpassing – the Jones’s you were fine. By that logic, people in impoverished countries could be happy if they were just a little bit better off than those around them." That study, apparently, is no longer valid.

So I guess I'm not as happy as I thought I was and a lot of people are a lot happier than they seem to be.

Hmmm......