In the article “How to Buy Happiness”, by Sonja Lyubomirsky, they surveyed over two hundred thousand college students about what makes them happy and the majority of the answers were ‘being very well off financially’. The author didn’t understand how money and happiness went hand in hand so she decided to speak with an ivy league graduate about it. At the end of that discussion, the graduate realized that he had it all, everything he can ask for but he still wasn’t happy. Studies say that it is not about how much we spend or what we possess but more of how we spend it. When looking at an updated study, the author realized that the more income an individual possessed the more happier they claimed to be, mostly because of the wealth they contained. Where other places, such as Cornell University and University of Colorado, believe that experiences is what makes us happy. When we get new things it is only a matter of time until it becomes old to us and needs to be replaced, but experiences we tend to remember them. Another reason why experiences are richer is because they cant be compared to by others, which is different from a possession where people can compare them to. They tend to say people who compare themselves to others or belongings to one another are those that tend to be unhappy within themselves. There was another study that said a way to gain happiness is by spending money on others. The act of buying something for someone whether they need it or not gives us a sense of gratitude and compassion. It gives us a sense of well-being and helps build social interactions and relationships with others, we are so distracted by our own problems that we forget the world.

In the world we live in today, many people believe that money buys happiness. In my opinion it is all an illusion. When you go out and spend money on luxurious things it feels good, however it is only a temporary happiness. But, when you go out with friends, family, or loved ones you create memories that will stay with you forever.

Say for example you are a parent with a full-time job, you have a stable income but you don’t get to spend as much time with your child as you wish. As far as home necessities and all the materialistic things in life, you have them because your able to afford it. So you spend all this time living and believing that you are happy, or at least content. Then the day comes where you are laying in your deathbed, you wont be thinking to yourself ‘i should have worked another hour’ but more like ‘i wish i could have spent more time with my child’.

Just because you make money, you don’t have to let it make you. Life is what you make of it and money is temporary, whereas memories are forever.

According to the Los Angeles Times article, “How to buy happiness” by Elizabeth Dunn and Micheal Norton, our happiness can increase depending on how we spend our money. The article began by making us readers think on what would we do if we woke up the following day finding one million dollars under our mattress and asking us what would we do with it. Many people start thinking about buying a new home, cars and other material items that they believe will make them happy or bring them happiness, however in reality materialistic things in addition to thinking about yourself will make you happy temporarily. While spending your money on making memories and on others to make them happy makes you satisfied overall, and what does satisfaction bring you? Happiness of course! One example that supports this is an experiment that was done on a college campus. They gave the students Starbucks gift cards in which they were split among three groups: one group of students were told to use the gift card on themselves, another group was told to pass their gift card to someone else, and the last group was told to use the gift card to buy something for someone else while hanging out with that person at a Starbucks. Results were that those who treated someone else at Starbucks were happiest out of everyone. The authors had a good point with this article stating that spending even just a few dollars on someone else provides more happiness than using cash to treat yourself because I completely agree. I feel that buying memories has a bigger impact on your happiness and that the littlest thing can be the biggest in most cases.

So I asked myself, “What would I do if I found one million dollars under my mattress” and the first thing that popped in my mind was buying myself certain things, but then I looked at the bigger picture and how far would I get with that and how would it impact in my life and my mind automatically changed. I would much rather not have much, spend that on others around me so that I can see their joy cause in all reality there’s nothing better then making others happy.