How Money Can Control Your Life

Does having more money than the average person give you a better chance at being happy? Yes, but to a certain extent. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor and the author of Stumbling on Happiness said, "Research reveals that memory is less like a collection of photographs than it is like a collection of impressionist paintings rendered by an artist who takes considerable license with his subject." The material things are only in our memory for a short period of time which makes the happiness last for only a few moments. When waiting for a package, you become excited and you just cannot wait to get it and be able to actually have it physically. Once you get it, you are so happy, releasing more Endorphins than you usually would. But this happiness only last for a little while. Once the excitement is gone your brain goes back to making the usual amount of Endorphins, thus cause you to lose that kind of high you just had. Money does buy happiness, but for only a limited amount of time.

In a small study, 16 employees were asked about their general happiness levels before and after receiving their annual bonus. Before the study was conducted, the employees thought that spending their bonuses on themselves would get a greater amount of happiness but they were proven wrong. No matter what the size of the actual bonus, employees who spent more of their bonus money on others or charity reported greater general happiness levels than those who spent more of it on themselves. When you spend money on other people, it feels rewarding. When you give back, your brain releases Endorphins giving you that good feeling and it also activates parts of your brain that deals with trust, social connection, and pleasure. So when giving to charity and family, money does contribute to happiness.

It was found that in a survey of 1000 americans, only 1% of those who made more than $75,000 said they were "very dissatisfied" with their lives and only 4% ranked their happiness in the lowest category. The reason why only 1% of those who were surveyed said they were not happy and the rest were satisfied was because they probably had financial stability. When taxes are paid, bills are paid, and you are not in debt, you get to not be as stressed out as someone struggling to pay their bills giving you time to relax. So in this situation, money does buy happiness.

Spending money on experiences, such as vacations or going to an amusement park, would be more beneficial than spending your money on material things. "You get a more social value out of the experience and when you talk to others about this experience, it turns into an enjoyable conversation." Creating good memories, ones that stick in your head for a long time, give you a more uplifting experience rather than buying something because the happiness from that only lasts for a few moments. This also gives you a chance to bond with someone who shared the same experience as you. So money can, but happiness and also social values.

In some ways money doesn’t buy happiness. Mona Normura wrote that after her mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer, one of her last journal entries stated that she began to realize how ungrateful she was about what she had and she also talked about regretting choices made in her younger years as a result to her trying to make money and then spending it on material things. The mother lived the last few days of her life in sadness, beating herself up about all the wrong decisions she had made. Another way money impacted their life in a less happy way is when you become obsessed with trying to make as much money as you can. James Altucher wrote that if he could make 10 million dollars, it would be too easy. Since he thought everyone made more than him, he felt poor, so he became obsessed with making money, wanting to make 100 million in order to achieve happiness. Like the mother, money made him forget to be grateful for what he has and waste time trying to make money when he has plenty to survive.

Money has the power to buy happiness in many different ways: By giving back, by spending on experiences, by being able to pay for your expenses, and by buying material things. But money can also affect your life in a negative way such as being obsessed with obtaining money and become ungrateful about the amount of money you have. Money can affect our lives in different ways depending on how much you have, we can all achieve happiness no matter how much you have, it just depends on how you do it.