The respected entrepreneur and speaker Richard Koch once quoted a study exploring the correlation between money and happiness. At the start of the graph, as money goes up, happiness also moves up. This is logical because we need a certain amount of money to stay out of poverty. However, Koch notes that at a "surprisingly low level" of income, as the the scale of money goes up, happiness will tend to level off. What this study shows is that more money does not equate to more happiness, unless you are living in poverty. This is readily seen in the world's wealthiest celebrities, many of whom are not happy.
Tim Soutphommasane, a philosophy writer for The Age Melbourne, asserts that when all our material needs and obsessions are met, “life is bound to be disenchanting”. There are certain aspects of the ‘human condition’ that are directly at odds with the ‘pursuit of happiness’. My personal opinion is that a person can live happily if they recognise the clash between happiness and money, and accept that “there is a certain point beyond which material wealth stops adding to happiness”.
Clearly, life is not about the mindless pursuit of money or judging someone solely from their outward appearance, as the media would like to lead us to believe. So what should we aim for in life? The following points are pretty obvious, but I thought I should remind myself.
What life is about:
- Integrity
- Honesty
- Generosity
- Friendship
- Family
- Love
- Harmony
- Morality
- Compassion
- Health
- Happiness
- Good humour
- Doing what you enjoy and having fun
