Would you feel happy when given an additional 10% pay raise? Would you feel excited when earning generous prizes in a TV show? Would you feel excited when getting 10,000 yuan by winning the lottery? Sure, the pleasure centers of your brain light up, but actually that initial rush does not translate into long-term pleasure for most people. Why doesn't money bring a constant sense of joy? The answer is that the relationship between them is fairy small.
Many people are under the illusion that the more money they make, the happier they will be. They put all their resources into making money at the expense of their family and health. However, they fail to realize that people's material wants increases with the amount of money they make. Many of us must have experienced this without realizing it. When our income is small, we usually stretch it to cover all our basic needs. When our income increases, we think we will have plenty left over, but it turns out that we spend it all anyway. And when we think about it, we do not know where all that money went. This reason is that when we have more money, we see and crave many more things and we accumulate many things we don't really need. To quote the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, "Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only." Admittedly, happiness is dependent on being able to meet basic needs for food, shelter and clothing, but after meeting those needs you need to turn to something other than consumerism because additional money has negligible impact on how happy you are.
Rather than earning and spending more, true happiness lies somewhere else. It typically comes from good health, close friendship, loving marriage, warm family. According to the National Opinion Research Centre of University of Chicago, people with five or more close friends are 50% more likely to describe themselves as "very happy" than respondent with fewer; on the other hand, a survey of 800 college alumni showed that classmates who value high income, job success, and prestige more than close friends and love were twice as likely to be "fairy" or "very" unhappy. In addition, happiness is about managing what you already have, concentrating on your own success instead of comparing yourself-your income-with others. A person with a 5,000 yuan salary has more fun to take his family out than thinking how much more fun those earning 6,000 would have than him.
Money will buy food, but not an appetite; a house, but not a home; luxuries, but not culture; amusements, but not happiness. It is good to have money to buy what it can, but it is better not to lose what it cannot. Therefore, if you hunt for happiness, don't pin your hopes on the next big pay raise; look at your money with a different eye instead.
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