Can money buy you happiness?

    Can money buy you happiness? Funny question. Everyone always says that money can’t buy you happiness. Maybe they’re right. I think they are, to a certain extent. But money can definitely buy you comfortability and relieve stress which can definitely help lead a happier life.

    If you aren’t the most affluent person you will most likely have more stress. People with less money have to worry about whether they’ll be able to pay the bills or buy food and provide for their family. This causes lots of stress and worrying. If you are in a better financial situation you won’t have to worry about this because you will be lucky enough to know that you will be eating tonight and to know that you won’t be evicted because you didn’t have enough money to pay the mortgage.

    In this sense, money can buy a certain extent of happiness. Or definitely get you down the road to happiness. It is really difficult to be happy when you’re struggling to pay for everything. While money won’t guarantee happiness, it can get you some comfortability which sets the foundation for happiness. Obviously, you can still be in a bad financial situation and be happy. It can also be the other way around, you can be in a good financial situation and be unhappy.

    Money is not what really matters in life. What matters are experiences. While money can buy some experiences, such as a cruise, for example, there are some experiences, which are often the best ones, that cannot be bought. Like friendship for example. You can kind of buy a friendship, but at that point is it really a friendship? Money cannot buy love in any shape that it comes in. Whether it is familial love, or friendship love, or a significant other love. It cannot be bought.

    In addition, if you have too much money it's hard to get anything that will excite you. I just got a new fitbit recently, and I was so excited with it. If I were filthy rich, like say, Jeff Bezos, a new fitbit would be pocket change to me. For entertainment he had to make a cruise-like voyage to the moon. That’s crazy!

    I have come back to this essay after several days, and I actually think that maybe money can buy some happiness. Like I said before it cannot buy love but it can buy experiences and experiences can make us happy, especially pleasant ones. I think happiness is relative to each person. You also cannot have happiness without having sorrows and low points because if you have nothing to compare it to then it isn’t happiness in your mind. One person may have gone through so many hardships which then leads them to be extremely happy with just a simple dinner with their family. On the other hand, if someone has it easy in life, which is also relative, a simple dinner with their family is just normal and they would have to have something much more dramatic or something they haven’t done to excite them. Although, I say that they would have to do something they haven’t done, but I’m not exactly right, am I? Everyone has something they are happy about, whether it be a movie they watch over and over again, or a sport they love, and they can be happy about it several times, even over a short period of time. This is why happiness is so relative. For each person something different makes them happy. And you cannot generalize this feeling of happiness because it can be so drastically different from the person next to you. So while money can buy you some happiness, and certainly comfort, it is not the only thing that causes happiness because happiness means something different to everyone you talk to.

Comments

  1. Luke YouNovember 3, 2021 at 7:54 AM

    I think you make a lot of good points in this essay, and I certainly agree with you. I think the statement that "Money cannot buy you happiness" is dumb. . But, I think your essay is a bit too repetitive, repeating words like "happy" or even repeating entire ideas.

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  2. Kate ANovember 9, 2021 at 6:59 PM

    Good essay, I like how you go through a few different ways of thinking about the prompt because it helps give an idea of your thought process. I also thought you had good conversational tone. One thing I think you could improve on is making the essay more personal. Maybe add examples from your own life that show how money can affect someone's happiness. But overall good job!

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  3. JeanaNovember 9, 2021 at 7:52 PM

    You do a pretty good job of explaining your point of view. Though you do a good job of outlining your thought process, I think you could work on organization and expanding on your points. For example, in the 4th paragraph you talk about money buying good experiences then kind of switch to talking about how money absolutely cannot buy happiness. I also think you could expand on your fifth paragraph a bit more. Other than that, your arguments are solid and interesting to read.

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  4. Ryan WangNovember 9, 2021 at 9:17 PM

    Your essay does a great job incorporating conversational tone and I liked reading the thought processes you had while writing this essay. Regarding the last paragraph, it felt a little out of place and I feel like you could spread out some of what you say into to smaller bits. Great job!

    ReplyDelete

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