Will money make you happy?

How many times have you heard a rich person tell you money won’t make you happy? And you never believe them?

Well you’re both right. Money does make you happy, to a degree. And depending on who you are, money might make you really happy.

Happiness is personal- what makes one person happy won’t make another happy. Happiness is a really hard thing to measure, and therefore aim for.

One of the best definitions is that happiness is your expectations being exceeded.

So what’s the easiest way to be happy? Lower your expectations. This is why many people living in what is objective poverty, can still be enormously happy.

What do you really want?

You need to work out what you want- not what society suggests that you want, or what your friends want. But you personally. If you want a quiet life and have no need for a Ferrari, then you can be happy at a much lower income than someone who wants a huge yacht. Happiness through material possessions is likely to be an ultimately unfulfilling path though.

But we live (and operate biologically) in a status based hierarchy. In the modern way, one of the primary routes to convey status is through material possessions. It is therefore hard to avoid falling into this trap to some degree, but the extent to which you pursue this path is largely within your control. I’m sure you’ve heard people talk about the dangers of ‘buying things you don’t need, with money you don’t have, to impress people you don’t care about’.

Money or freedom?

For most people when they say they want to be rich, it’s not really the money they want but the freedom. Having all the money in the world is of little use if you don’t have the freedom to spend your time as you want to.

Some CEOs may earn millions of pounds, but many of them also have to work 100 hours a week, sacrifice decades of their prime years, miss their families, travel constantly and generally have very little control over their lives- would you want that?

Or instead do you simply want money so that you can do whatever you want with your time- nobody telling you what to do and when.

Spend some time thinking about what will truly make you happy. Discuss it with your family. Apply the ‘80yr old me’ rule- what will 80yr old you look back on and consider to have been a happy and successful life?