I remember coming across a short but powerful post that said these words “We've made life look like we only came to look for money and die.” One might want to argue it, further amplifying what the post stated, but an objective reality check will reveal that this statement is true. When such conversations like what this prompt suggests, come up, I find myself drawn back to this statement and the truth in it.
Life holds a lot more than making just money. Of course, this isn't a view many like to hear, especially not from someone who hasn't even “made it in life.” This is not to say that we don't need money nor is it to make it look like money doesn't account for many things in life today. It does, and without a doubt, everyone needs it. Almost everything operates on the exchange of money, and that's why we seek it so much that we could lose ourselves in this rat race and in the search for it.
I've always had one view on whether money can buy or guarantee happiness. And that's a no; an untrue statement. Money has been far exalted for the worth it holds. But where the thin line fails to be drawn is that money amplifies than we could say it creates or makes, when it comes to human emotions and feelings. This brings me also to a certain statement I came across some time back which reads “Money doesn't change people, it only reveals their true character hidden by poverty.”
This is perhaps a reason many people see money as evil, even though it's the love of it that welcomes that evil. Money is an amplifier. If one's happiness is subject to it, they don't have that true or real happiness, because what if every of that money goes away? Would they stop being happy? We might argue it but some rich people are living in misery, some untold and some told. What makes it more valid for me is this, that some of the rich are proof money doesn't just guarantee happiness.
It's a serious thing when we subject our happiness to the mercy of money. One reason is that we could lose ourselves in the search for it, and when we don't get it, we become utterly miserable. The possibility of compromising and losing one's values becomes highly possible. Without money, life could be unpleasant. When we learn to find happiness with and from within ourselves, it goes beyond the availability of money. And when money comes, it amplifies that happiness.
I've seen people live on just enough to provide their needs yet are some of the happiest people you could find. This surrender of one's happiness to the mercy of money is much of a modern-day, modern-time pressurising idea. Maybe it's because the world has become more costly and monetised in every form. We need money in life, we absolutely do and everyone should strive towards getting it. Nevertheless, one shouldn't get to the point that money defines their happiness－it should come from within, from purpose and meaning.