Does money bring happiness?

Money is of course king of the world, because it increasingly seems to matter more than humanity. Allow me a little anger… But seriously, how important is money? Does it matter or not? Some people say that money does not buy happiness. Some people also say that “when need enters through the door, love goes out through the window.” Who do we believe? Who do we bet on? We'll see…

I think you already intuit the answer, don't you? Because money... DOES give happiness. YES it does. A lot of "blablabla" and very romantic to say that it does not bring happiness, but it is a lie. Yes, we need money to be happy. Which is not everything, of course not. But, that it is important, it is. Money is a means to obtain a large amount of reinforcers. As long as you pursue it for what it is. A MEANS and not an end in itself, you are on the right path.

There is a famous story about Pablo Escobar. When the police were chasing him and he was locked in a bunker full of money that was of no use to him. He literally couldn't use it for anything, because he was deprived of the possibility of exchanging it for food, tranquility, freedom, among many other things. Money is just a piece of paper. But it is a paper that, if you know how to use it well, can help you fill your life with beautiful things. 

It is no secret to anyone that not having enough to cover your basic needs for shelter, food, education, recreation and more, generates health problems, both physical and psychological. Lack of money can affect all areas of your life. 

That's why it is said that “when hunger enters through the door, love goes out through the window.” After all, love is nourished by positive interactions. And the lack of money can be a stressor that increases the number of negative interactions. Not for everyone of course, but it is a risk factor.

This does not mean that we need to be millionaires. What is ultimately important is accessing the reinforcers that allow us to build a meaningful life. A life that generates satisfaction... To do this you need to: cover your basic needs, build quality relationships, carry out rewarding activities in the short and long term, know how to regulate emotions, among others. So you only need enough to access this. The amount of money can vary from person to person because not all of us long for the same things. 

However, I am going to give you an approximate value, which I do not say but research. In a publication of Journal of Happiness. They tell us that Happiness increases when you manage to obtain an annual income of about $50,000 dollars. 

I'm going to translate the figure for you in case you are like me who only thinks in Colombian and Mexican pesos. They are approximately 195,561,500 Colombian pesos and 846,479 Mexican pesos. This translates into a monthly salary of 16,296,791 Colombian pesos and 70,539 Mexican pesos. 

I read that and it makes me laugh nervously and it outrages me when they conclude that money does not buy happiness. It doesn't seem like a small figure to me, even less so in Colombia and Mexico where the minimum wage is less than 10% of that amount. But hey, let's console ourselves with the fact that from there on up it doesn't seem to make people happier. 

From here we could draw two conclusions. The first is that if our goal is to be happier and build a satisfying life, we don't have to fight to fill a Pablo Escobar-style money bunker. We should only strive to have capital close to the amount already mentioned. It seems simple, but many people lose themselves in the pleasure of making more and more money at the expense of everything. Thinking that the more they have, the better.

The second conclusion is that despite not needing to have too much to be happy, the figure is still quite unattainable for most of the population, therefore, given that money is a means and not an end. we could cheat, and use other means to reach the same goal. To do this we need to know how to spend what we have and we must know what reinforcers we can get for free to save a few pesos.

In the book Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilberth, an Irish farmer tells her how he left his small Country Cork village because it didn't seem to have any answers to give him. He went to explore India, to find inner peace. A few years later he returns to the village. While he was sitting in the kitchen with his father, he begins to tell him everything he learned.

He explains how important meditation is to achieve serenity and comments: “It can save your life, seriously. “It helps you calm your mind.” His father, who was listening attentively while he was looking at the fire, turns around and tells him kindly: “My mind is already calm, son” and he returns to continue looking at the fire.

This is one of my favorite anecdotes. It makes me think, of that old story that says, that someone goes around the world looking for happiness, until he realizes that it was inside him. And that is exactly the point, it is not about despising money or pretending that it is not necessary. There will always be things that we can only obtain if we have the necessary resources, but there are others that we can find with or without money. On the other side of the world and after years of investing effort, time and money or sitting in our own home looking at the fire.

There are many ways to calm the mind, meditation is one of them. But psychology uses different techniques to achieve the same objective. Each of my articles is aimed at showing you the other means - other than money - that allow us to build a meaningful life.


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