American Dream Essay

Happiness
“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while your being miserable” (Clare Boothe Luce, Lifehackquotes.com). Money is only a short lived happiness, only serving to distract the spender from their own problems. People these days focus on assuming vast surpluses of wealth. However the simple truth is all the money in the world doesn’t compare to even a moment of happiness such as the birth off one’s baby. Any amount of wealth no matter how bountiful invariably will either erode, tear, or become void.
“Without happiness money can only do so much. Dollars will and always will be paper lasting only so long before it tears but happiness lasts forever” .Even one of our founding fathers who was wealth himself sees the value of happiness to be more influential than currency. There is no amount of wealth that can compare to the joy on a parent’s face when their child is born, or when two people become married. These events are impossible to fabricate because money can’t create emotions like love and hope, only more false illusions. For example, if two men climb to the top of Mount Everest otherwise known as the world’s tallest mountain. One man decides to exploit his wealth by traveling in a helicopter, while the second man ascends to the pike of his own strength and determination. The one that accomplished the most would be the man that reached the pike himself without the aid of money to do it for him. Take a wedding ring for example, if a person proposes to another person it is not the amount of money put in the ring he acquired, but that that person loved them enough to make that gesture. Experiences should be “shared” with different groups of people creating a unique “identity” for happiness . These experiences have bred the United States to be the great country that it is today. Joy can’t be replicated by any source of income because experiences can last forever money has an expiration date.
Time and time again people try to fill the void of happiness with wealth. While I do acknowledge that having an extra supply of money will provide the wielder with more security it doesn't affect happiness. As long as these people can endure the basic hardships of life, they will survive without relying on income. Also wealth cannot last forever it will eventually expire from being overly relied on. Whether you have paper money that tears, coins that corrode they will eventually become useless. Therefore it is more reliable to embrace happiness in life because it can’t be ripped up or torn apart. Take alcohol for instance when someone has a drink they at first have a nice relaxed buzz, but however it’s short-lived because the hangover will take over and make you miserable. Money is like alcohol they both serve to provide you with a short distraction from your problems in life. While I do acknowledge that wealth will make you happen when you spend it, but it then passes after. Therefore people who have money often rely on the wealth protect them, it’s not designed to achieve that; it’s a tool that has been completely overused and thus becomes impractical to depend on. “Benjamin Franklin also defined a rich man as ‘he who is contented.’ Who is that he asked? ‘Nobody.” Rich men are never happy with what they have, the money only useful as a tissue to hold the tears back. Also Mr. Franklin, one of our founding fathers admitted to this, being a rich man so this must hold true. Therefore money will not fill the void of happiness.
Only happiness lasts forever, it can’t be destroyed, only made. It serves to help people fight through the everyday problems in life. Money can’t do this because money has no emotion it is a tool that has over and over again been over used and become useless. For example, Einstein described insanity as doing something more than once that doesn't work and that is precisely what is being done to fill the void of happiness with money. There is no point of trying because money and happiness are so different from each other. Money will eventually corrode and die but happiness last forever through experiences shared between many different people. “If you've climbed in the Himalayas, that’s something you’ll always remember and talk about, long after all your favorite gadgets have gone to the landfill” . It is possible to be rich without money, it is achieved in experiences not in the cars, the houses, or the amount of money we have. It is such a shame that we don’t focus on the real riches of life itself like the birth in this world, the Earth’s beautiful landscapes, wealth is all around us do not forget that.