During our seminar this week, we came across a cold read about a person who has all the money he can want but does not live a happy life. This seems peculiar, even if there is the cliche that money can't buy happiness most people still disagree with it. They reason that they can buy things that make them happy or use their money to achieve their state of happiness. The passage counters this claim by emphasising the social aspect of happiness. In the psychology realm, Maslow's hierarchy of needs states that after physiological and safety needs, a human hunts for the sense of love and belonging. The author in the book obviously has the physiological and safety portions satisfies, but he complains of not getting the attention or the treatment he wants. Wealth probably made his life worse, since in our society wealth is somewhat considered a status. This status may have caused other people to distance themselves from him since they live different lifestyles and have different interests. A wealthy person's idea of having fun may differ significantly with a normal persons idea of fun, since the wealthy guy has no budget for fun. Achieving the status of being wealthy can go both ways, either one gets isolated from society, or one becomes happier with the added wealth. The best way to become the latter is probably to be careful on how you get wealthy, since relationships with other people do play a critical role in our lives.
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