If Money Can't Buy Happiness, Why Are We Still Chasing After It?

If money can't buy happiness, why are we all so concerned with making more of it?

Unless you have been living under a rock somewhere, I'm sure that you have heard the expression, “Money can't buy happiness”. Even though this truth, or a variation of it, has been passed around for centuries, we all still behave as though getting more money will solve all of our problems.

When you are working at a low paying job, under-employed or out of work and looking for a job, it's only natural to daydream about that financial windfall that will solve all of your problems. You can close your eyes and see it so clearly. The new car you would buy, the mortgage payments you would get caught up on or just the simple pleasure of being able to spend your time working on projects that you are passionate about (even if that means just laying by the pool).

Even when we have a decent job and earn an income that is sufficient for paying our bills, we still can't seem to help chasing after a larger income. Sociologists and other experts have conducted study after study, all of which support the idea that there really isn't any correlation between how much money a person has and their overall happiness. In fact, some studies suggest that the more money we earn, the less happy we are.

What's even more interesting is that although we really do know that earning more money won't make us happy; we still can't seem to stop working like crazy to acquire more money that we don't even need. The long hours might damage our relationships with our spouses, our children and our mental well-being, but we still keep chasing after the dollars.

Just to set the record straight, here are some reason why having more money won't increase our level of happiness:

• It's all relative – The truth is that it really isn't how much money we earn that makes us happy. What's important is making more money than the people around us. Which makes a lot of sense. It is only natural to compare our status against everyone else, and simply having more than everyone else can actually make us happier. The problem is that when we earn more money than everyone in our neighborhood, we start looking for a better home in a nicer neighborhood and spend more time with affluent people. Suddenly, we have a whole new group of people to try to outdo.
  
  
• Owning shiny, expensive new things won't make us happy either – When we spend a lot of money to have top of the line merchandise, it actually does give us an emotional boost. Where we get into trouble is that the boost is temporary. To make the problem worse, our desire for material goods increases at a rate slightly higher than our income. This means that no matter how much money you make, there will always be material things you want that are slightly out of reach.
  
  
• Once we get rich, we don't relax – This is probably the biggest reason that having more money doesn't impact overall happiness. We imagine that if we joined the ranks of the very rich, we would have more time to enjoy the finer things in life and we fantasize about all of the dream vacations we would take and the lazy days by the pool. It's a very compelling fantasy, but it isn't how it works. Studies have shown, over and over, that once people get rich, they don't slack off and start enjoying themselves. Instead, they work harder than ever and feel an intense amount of pressure to keep succeeding in their jobs. This means that they work harder in order to earn more money so that they can start enjoying their lives. Instead, they just end up spending more of their lives working at a job that probably causes them more stress and tension than they had when they were barely getting by.

So, with all of this information, how can we shake the idea that money will make us happy once and for all? The answer, unfortunately, is not a simple one. We live in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with images urging us to buy more, earn more and generally just have more. The people in commercials are always smiling and seem very happy about their good fortune. The more stuff we have, the more satisfied we are, because we view the acquisition of stuff as a display of status and ability.

So, the odds are good that if you had a job that paid you a very handsome salary, you still wouldn't feel fulfilled. Instead, you would just be left with that feeling that something was missing. That this life looked a whole lot better in the brochure back when you were broke.

And then, after a few years of soul searching and maybe some intensive therapy, you'll discover what was missing. It is so simple, so powerful and so under-rated.

It's simply the feeling of being happy – right now, in this moment. And the best part? It's completely free.

Do you find yourself working extra hard to get ahead? Do you daydream about the life you would have when if you were rich? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for PhillyJobsBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.