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Wealth and Happiness

Material prosperity does not provide lasting happiness. This is the conclusion of all research and practical experience.

The pursuit of wealth is very strong in most people because it is based on our survival instinct. Wealth is perceived basically as a means of survival. And then beyond survival it becomes associated with whatever we think will make us happy. Because survival involves the fulfillment of need based on the perception of lack or potential lack, the pursuit of wealth as a goal for happiness is also based on the perception of lack or potential lack. In our primitive nature we were accustomed to accumulate food and things necessary to survive. We accumulated to live, whereas now we often live to accumulate.

This perception motivates the pursuit of wealth and therefore involves a desire to get, to take and even to manipulate. Any pursuit based on an illusion, such as lack, cuts one off from the universal source of all things.

Wealth is an expression of the abundance of life. We can participate in that abundance in a real way by being generous, by giving and sharing. This demonstrates to ourselves that we have more than what we need for ourselves and by sharing we feel the abundance that does in fact exist in our lives. We open ourselves to the source of abundance and ensure ourselves the continuous flow of that abundance.

When money or wealth is seen as an end in itself and equated with happiness we confuse wealth (a means) with happiness (an end). Extensive cross-cultural studies show a very low correlation between material wealth and happiness, except in cases of extreme poverty where basic needs were not being met. Interestingly enough, as people increase their material wealth they do not increase their happiness, and in fact, their level of happiness often decreases. Research also shows that as people increase their wealth any positive effect on improving their moods is very transitory.

“Surprisingly, some people feel more depressed once they have attained material prosperity than they did while striving for it. The rat race is sustained by the hope that his actions will yield some future benefit, which makes his negative emotions more bearable. However, once he reaches his destination and realizes that material prosperity does not make him happy, there is nothing to sustain him. He is filled with a sense of despair and hopelessness, because there is nothing else to look forward to, nothing that will allow him to envision a future in which he would be happy.” (Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier, p. 57)

We often feel we do not have enough so we keep striving to get more – working more, earning more money, gaining more prestige or power, buying more ‘stuff’ – all as an attempt to find the happiness we deny within, and to fill the holes we feel in our life. Research shows that as we acquire more we become more demanding and less satisfied. The problem is that the quest for more is the ego’s demand, but the ego is never ever satisfied. It keeps demanding more and more. More is never enough.

In a materialistic culture, material things are measurable and tangible. Therefore we tend to value them more than the immeasurable and intangible like meaning, feelings, soul qualities and inner peace. As long as we live with a materialistic outlook, we will value material wealth as a measure of our success and value, confusing it with happiness.

 

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