1. Terry Shadwell
http://terryshadwell.blogspot.com

2. Nothing for Money
“True happiness does not come from money.” I don’t know how many times I have heard people say
this, especially from all the millionaires and billionaires. These so called guru’s who tell us that true
happiness is found within, and not through the private jets, luxury boats, exotic mansions and other
extremely expensive worldly goods, and goodies, that they have. They swan around the world, being
paid millions by us, so that they can tell us that money is not the be all and end all of happiness.
In fact I have heard quite a few of these experts say “I’d give it all up to have true happiness.” Well I
guess that none of them have ever found true happiness because none of them have ever given up
any money.
Well I will tell you to day that they are wrong and money does lead to happiness. I won’t tell you
that you need millions, or even billion of dollars, but you need enough to make yourself
comfortable. You need to have money in order to survive in our society.
You see this world works on money and without it you can do very little, including buying food,
shelter and clothing. Go tell a starving person that can’t afford food that they should be happy
because they have no money, but just give a warning so that I can call the ambulance first. True
happiness does come from within, but it can very hard to search for that happiness when you a to
busy searching for food to keep you alive and clothes to keep you warm.
How about love and money? Sure The Beatles tell us “money can’t buy me love”, but it can buy you
a divorce. A lot of marriages break down due to money, or more accurately, the lack of money.
Fighting to pay bills, not being able to buy new items or to have a holiday puts a lot of stress on
relationships, and slowly they break down. Love, the one true happiness that people want, is
destroyed because of no money.
If having money can stop someone from being hungry and help a relationship from imploding does
that not suggest that money can make people happy? What about the fact that people can go and
do what they want, have what they want, and be who they want, because money will allow them to
do so? Is that not money bringing happiness to a person’s life?
Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Money does buy happiness, but it will not buy total happiness. Money
will help you get to the things and to the places that can make you happier. However, when you get
there you need to happy within, or all the tangible goods, holiday destinations and people around
you will not make you happy at all.
Don’t be greedy either or allow yourself to be consumed for money. That will not make you happy.
In fact greed and obsession are probably the fastest way to making yourself unhappy. My advice,
work, save, invest, and enjoy the life your money will allow you to have.
And stop paying people money to tell you that you don’t need money to be happy.
Terry Shadwell