Money and happiness:  make money, earn money your income and happiness

Does money increase your happiness?

To answer the question, we will look at some researches that focused on the amount of money and purchasing choices.

The amount of money you have and how you spend your money greatly matter in getting happiness. Therefore, money is used for purchasing things used in daily life and making life comfortable.

1. Material purchase:

It is often thought that material purchase is the source of happiness, but it is a myth. In fact, Material purchase can

1. save your time if you purchase materials for your comfort and ease.
   1. Make you understand the worth of your job or business that is the source of income.
   1. Give you short term happiness (due to material purchase)
   1. Increase short term excitement but later it diminishes because you experience the materialistic thing you bought and now you feel less excited for it.
2. Pashto speaking people often quote ‘’ Tar Khwaralo ya Thama Sha Da’’ meaning that its better to wait than eat. This means that the excitement before getting something makes you happier than getting it as it gets habituated after you get something. Maintaining this excitement is the actual happiness.

But how can you get long term happiness?

• Experiential purchase:

Experiential purchase can increase your happiness (long term) if you spend money on:

1. Your core values that benefits others too.
   1. Family experiences and friends (spending on your family and friends and making a wonderful social experience: family tours/outing and gatherings with friends).
   1. Help someone achieve his or her personal goals.

• Spending on maintaining good relationship:

Spending on making your relationship stronger and warmth and increasing excitement in your relations can greatly increase your long-term happiness. Including

1. Spending on abstract things not physical
   1. A message or a call to your friend abroad
   1. Spend more time for your social connection

The researchers of an interesting research stated that ‘’friends are worth more than a Ferrari’’

They meant that thinking of having more time for social connections increases happiness whereas, thinking about money does not increase happiness.

The researchers Powdtharee & Wilkinson compared the it is worth $ 20 million if you are healthy, it is worth more than $ 300000 if you are enjoying married life, and it is worth nearly $ 200000 if you are regularly interacting with your neighbours around. The researchers in psychotherapy states that successfully completing a psychotherapy increases your happiness 32 times greater than the happiness that is increased by having more income.

• Altruism:

Sigmund Freud, who is called the father of Psychology, is famous for his theory in which he talked about the defence mechanisms or Ego defence Mechanisms for reducing the effects of minor psychological problems or unconscious conflicts that frequently occur includes Altruism.

            Altruism is helping other people without getting anything in return which can include:

1. Donations for the welfare of people, community or society
2. Spending on others when they someone’s help
3. Directly helping poor families
4. Supporting individual efforts and talents
5. Spending in charity
6. Helping people in disasters etc

This can greatly enhance your happiness owing to the satisfaction you get after helping people.

Rabbi Hyman Schachtel said that ‘’Happiness is not related to having that you want but it is related to wanting that you have’’.