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Mohammad Mohammadipour

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Can Money Buy Happiness?

Maybe more cash does make people happier. Especially salient are analyses done by University of Pennsylvania economists Daniel Sacks, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers. In their updated 2010 study, “Subjective Well-Being, Income, Economic Development and Growth,” the three compare subjective well-being survey data from 140 countries with those countries' income and economic growth rates. The researchers find that within individual countries richer people are happier than poorer; people in richer countries are happier than people in poorer countries; and over time increased economic growth leads to increased happiness. “These results together suggest that measured subjective well-being grows hand in hand with material living standards,” they conclude..

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    Tim Petersen

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    Jan 31 2013: as an amendment to my previous post, I should have stated earlier; since losing everything I 'thought' was important fifteen years ago (money, equipment, and property), along with my first love and children which were by all accounts the very most cherish-able aspects of my existence. I am gaining the wisdom from the pain, wisdom which I think must be the property of the sole-owner, Love, but to often not acquired until we suffer the pain of love, (everything else is knowledge) and this wisdom is teaching me through the understanding of my pain, no amount of money can buy the joy and happiness that I have been fortunate enough to have known at one time, and still lives in my heart and memories.

    Sometimes, in tracing the source of our joy and happiness, the heart is unable to debate against the mind. The mind, operating on past memories and fears of tomorrow has a completely different understanding of joy and happiness. he is only concerned with circumscribing the imaginations of tomorrow brought about by the fears of yesterday. The heart, on the other hand is the one who knows true happiness and joy, the contentment of just living the present, and really being the "being". We must listen closely over the clamor of a fearful mind
    You see, I am completely un-able to say it simply...
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      natasha nikulina 50+

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      TED Translator
      Jan 31 2013: You haven't wasted your pain.
      Thanks for your story, Tim !
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      Juliette Zahn 50+

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      Feb 6 2013: Hi Tim,
      The heart-mind debate is like a minute by minute committee meeting inside ourselves. The mind usually doesn't have time to hear the heart and sometimes the heart takes off and the mind has to deal with the effects. I wonder if this is a side effect of our speedy industrial growth, which makes balancing the two 'in real time' our biggest challenge. The heart knows "happiness comes only from being the being", while the mind has to figure the sustainability for the conditions that support living and " wisdom certainly is the property of the sole-owner " who acquires it through true expense.

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