critique 2

Money for Happiness

In an article written by David Futrelle of CNN Money he asked the question Can Money Buy Happiness? In this article he starts of by telling the reader about an old Lexis commercial where when you pay a lot of money for a high-end car who would want to ruin it by putting a bumper sticker on it.  David talks about how money can help find happiness but not buy you happiness. He states many things that will contribute to ones happiness and that money is a contributing factor. First, he brought up the area of a persons social group. A large scale study at Chicago University by the National Opinion Research Center had shown that 50% of people who had a large social group were much happier then those who had a smaller group. Money came in to affect when one would be able to hold a party or be able to set up a regular lunch date but most of all invest in your friends.

He then goes on and talk about the mere fact on how people tell their selves that if I just had a little bit more money I would be happy. But in fact when he shows that when people get more money they are not happy but that they still face the same problems they just want more and can not get enough. His argument on this was that for years humans have been able to adapt too many situations and have been since the Stone Age.  So when people come across more money they adapt to that amount and wish to move higher. And in addition to not having enough money people are also induce more stress on their self when they have more money.

Next, David goes in to the topic of envoy.  He brings out how people say to their self how they wish they had what the family next door has. He shows the not knowing the facts is where envoy sits in when all reality the family next door only makes 100$ more and just spends their money in a different manner and it seems on the outside that they have a better life.  On top of that he takes the read and shows them how two families with the same income level live differently and how ones life is happier then the other.  That is show by the family who lives in the upscale sub division and spends all their money on high end stuff tends to have higher stress and the family who live a mediocre life tends to be much happier.

He then concludes his article by telling the read just the same as in the beginning that money can help someone find happiness, but he says that “money is bliss if you want to know how to use the money you have to become happier, you need to understand just what it is that brings you happiness in the first place.”  He also gives a piece of advise and he said “when you are in that “hot” state, wager to buy, you tend to be an extremely poor judge of what you’ll think of a product when you cool down later” he then goes on and give advices on how to take time and think about what you really want and if it will make you happy.

I strongly agree with David in his article. I agree with the point that people can live with a lot of money and be happy if they know how to use it and know what will make them happy.  Money can not alone buy you happiness as he says it can only help you in your search for happiness.  When it comes to making more money I agree once again if you are making a set amount of money for a period of time then you are custom to it you have adapted to that level of income. Now if you start making more money you think well wow now I have more money to spend and spend it on thing you might not really need. Look at it this way you have lived with out so far do you really need it now.  David also talked about that too how people are poor judge of items when they buy on the spot and that is what I feel would make a person un-happy down the road.  I have done such things before and regretted it down the roads say when the bills came in.  But the one part that this author wrote about was the friendship part.  I agree 100% that a person will be much happier if they have a larger social group and when they have that money and mix it with that social group they are able to entertain and meet up and gout for a good time and in turn make you happy. But I still wonder is their more to happiness is souly left to just money helping someone find happiness or is there more things that would tie in on top of money?

Furtrel, David.”Can Money Buy Happiness?”CNNMoney.29 March2008. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2006/08/01/8382225/index.htm

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