Eternal Contradiction: Happiness is More Important than Money

Happiness and money, both are an important role in human’s life. There is a question that many people will argue about the impact from them, which have more benefit to people, it also means which is more important for people between happiness and money. I hope that when people work to make money, they can live a happy life. I go to the website that is authoritative with a lot of academic journals. And I found some data that relate to happiness and money, which shows that happiness is more important than money for people. The final purpose that people make money is that they can live a happy life. When people have the most basic material life, happiness is more important than money for them. If they want to earn more money, and they will lose many things, like family companionship, the companionship of friends and the companionship of children, which influence them to have a happy life. From my research, I hope that people have a new understanding of the importance of happiness and money and that everyone can have a happy life while working to make money.

With the development of social and economic development, our life also becomes more and better. However, there is a question that what’s the purpose of we live? We live for making much money or we live for happiness? Which one is more important for us? Is it important whether money is more important than happiness or happiness is more important than money?

Different people have different ideas. For some people, money is more important than happiness, because they think that they need more money to buy more things if they have more money, and then they can buy a more expensive car, clothes, and they can buy many things they like. In that case, they can feel happy. However, there also is some people think that they don’t need too much money and they can also fell very happy. They can stay at the home cook with their family together, they would feel very happy. In their opinion, happiness is very easy, accompany is an easy way that can make them feel happy. What’s more, playing with their friends, traveling with the people they love and have a healthy body would also make them happy. In fact, happiness doesn’t need too much money, happiness is the biggest driving force for us to live, not money.

Nowadays, many young people, they fight for their life, they think if they have more money, then they can live a better life and they will feel happy. However, whether money can make us feel happy? Maich (2008) did a research about money and happiness, he found that there is no doubt that money is inextricably linked with happiness because money provides freedom and power. What we do with that freedom and power is all about our personal values. That’s undeniable, much money can buy many things you like, and make you live a better life, but it doesn’t mean make you live a happy life. On the contrary, happiness can influence us and make our life become better. Happiness is important for our family, temperament, and health. Happiness is easy and it doesn’t need too much money, but it’s important for us.

Happiness is important for temperament. Holder and Klassen (2010) did a research about the happiness’s influence on people, they found that happiness has a great impact on people’s temperament, happiness can make people become more active. Happiness is not only influenced by the character of the child, but also on the character of the adult. For each person, we all have the childhood, and happiness takes a great impact on the establishment of character and growth. Shiner (1998) found that in the course of the child’s growth, happiness can affect the child’s psychology. If one child feels happy in childhood, which may effectively help the child’s healthy growth and the establishment of character. Holder and Coleman (2008) found that happiness can make children free from anxiety. Because anxiety will have a negative impact on the children’s learning and life, therefore, happiness is good for the growth of children. Besides, happiness can also influence the temperament of an adult. Costa and McCrae (1980) found a strong and consistent finding is that adults’ happiness is associated with personality. Happiness is positively related to an outgoing person and the people who are more positive, they will be more active to their life and work, finally, their life will be happier. Therefore, if one person lives a happy life, which can influence him to become positive to life, and then his character will be more extrovert, which is a benefit to their life.

Happiness is important for our family. Happiness has a positive impact on children’s learning and growth and can promote a more harmonious and happy family. Bele´n, Janice and Michaela (2016) did a research about the Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness, they found that the children have different understandings of happiness at different ages, but there is a one thing is the same, happiness takes a great role in their growth. Sternberg and Nigro (1980) found that happiness can play a positive role, the feeling of happiness is like a positive feeling. If children have a happy childhood, which is helpful to their study. What’s more important is that when child grows up, which can also help them to have a happy family and help their children has a happy childhood.

Is money the key to happiness? The short answer would be “Yes.” Money does bring happiness, but after acquiring a certain amount of wealth, the correlation between happiness and money slowly fades out. Money does bring happiness when spent on the right things. Supporting certain lifestyles contribute towards the overall wellness and general happiness level of a human being. Certain lifestyles do require more money, and this is precisely the reason everyone links happiness to money.

Works Cited

1. Maich, K. (2008). Money, happiness and freedom. Canadian Business, 81(3), 62-64.
2. Holder, M. D., & Klassen, A. (2010). Temperament and happiness in children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(4), 419-439.
3. Shiner, R. L. (1998). How shall we speak of children's personalities in middle childhood?: A preliminary taxonomy. Psychological Bulletin, 124(3), 308-332.
4. Holder, M. D., & Coleman, B. (2008). The contribution of temperament, popularity, and physical appearance to children's happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(2), 279-302.
5. Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38(4), 668-678.
6. Bele´n, M. L., Janice, D. H., & Michaela, G. (2016). Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(6), 2291–2312.
7. Sternberg, R. J., & Nigro, G. (1980). Developmental patterns in the control of emotional expression. Child Development, 51(4), 989-1002.
8. Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 403-425.
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10. Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870), 1687-1688.