• AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Money doesn’t buy happiness.

    What it does is eliminate and prevent most causes of human unhappiness, and practically all unhappiness based in meeting basic human needs.

    And I’m sorry, but daddy not being proud of you or mommy dying young when you have means doesn’t equate to the misery of rooting through a dumpster out of hunger or having a pig kick you out of an underpass into the rain to die of exposure.

    • lanolinoil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think this assumes there is some universal scale for suffering though – Like, if you aren’t physically tortured (or whatever you think worse suffering than you’ve had would be) does that mean you suffer internally less than those that have?

      I feel it’s more some internal scale created on your experiences. I wonder if there’s any studies on people suffering objectively vs subjectively.

      E: Here’s an old thread discussing this

    • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      True. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but being broke causes the sad.

      I can say my overall mood radically improved when I got a good salary.

    • sweetdude@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes it does. I would be extremely happy if I owned 100 acres of land, owned an indoor pool, hot tub, insert whatever thing you want. Seems to me like money would LITERALLY buy me happiness.

      • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        For me you’re not quite right.

        I own a nice house with a big garden and a decent car. And whilst I’m happy that I don’t have to spend money on subsidising a landlord or have to rely on public transport it’s not the owning of the assets that bring me joy within itself.

        I’m at the point where a bigger house or a better car would absolutely not make me happier, they might be nice, but that’s it.

        Money only brings happiness as much as it can reduce the causes of stress in your life. Thinking “when I can buy that, I’ll finally be happy” is a dangerous mindset, because unless you’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, there’s always going to be someone that has bigger and better things than you.

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Having what you want is nice, but it doesn’t replace connection.

        I say, this as someone who can’t afford what they want and sometimes even need. Having enough money is the hardest checkbox to happiness, but material possession alone isn’t the only ingredient unless you’re truly a clinical sociopath.

        The joy of stuff is incredibly fleeting.