Thursday, April 16, 2009

Money & Happiness

"Studies Show that Money Can Buy Happiness" says an article (I wish I have the link, but I don't). I am still waiting for a study that shows that "people cannot survive a 38-floor fall." Exactly how do these so-called researchers got the funding for these researches? I could have told you that, in less amount of time, why not just give me the funding directly? (O would argue that "ah, but you won't have the empirical data to support it.")

Yesterday I saw a link from Yahoo, "Studies Show That People Who Smiled in Their High School Photos Have More Successfully Marriage Rate." Who came up with these topics and exactly how DO they get the funding? Are they like those sales people who can allegedly sell a refrigeration to an Eskimo, maybe even with an ice-dispenser?? Or, how is the term "researchers" defined? Do you have to at least have a phD degree, or a group of phD wannabes will suffice, or maybe even a group of high school student browsing through facebook.com or classmate.com looking at people's high school photos? But I digressed...

With the part that money can buy happiness established, I think we should add some qualifiers (these aren't even in the article that I originally read, told you they should just gave me the grant money!). Money can buy happiness if and only if the following criterias are met:-

(1) reasonable health (I highly doubt a terminally ill patient or someone in a lot of pain will be able to achieve happiness. I'd say peacefulness of the soul at best.)

(2) loves ones around (or ample amount of time have passed since the loss of a loved one)

Once these criterias are met, money can most certainly bring about happiness -- you can quit that job you hate; you can go travel around the world, and take whoever you want with you; you will even have all the time in the world to do all the soul-searching that you want.

[I want to say that perhaps the obscenely rich can still feel empty inside, but since I do not have possession of an obscene amount of money, or know anyone that are obscenely rich, that would just be my bitterness talking.]

Oh, one more qualifyier, although we've established that money can, indeed, buy happiness; one must continue to keep in mind that what will bring about happiness to one may not necessarily have the same effect to another. Each person has their own definition of what happiness is.

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