Measuring your happiness should not be about the amount of money you make but how you spend it according to Sonja Lyubomirsky in her article “How to buy happiness.” We worry too much about getting to the top of the status hierarchy that we forget about ourselves and even our loved ones according to David Brooks in his article “What suffering does.” Another way to measure happiness is by seeing how much you have overcome a suffering. When the weights are lifted off your shoulders the feeling is relieving because you are no longer suffering. Both articles display different perceptions of happiness.

When the topic of happiness comes up a million things can pop into your head. Happiness has millions of different meanings to the billions of people in the world and beyond. But what does it really mean to be happy ? Is it that new iPhone or those new shoes you just couldn’t live without ? Or is it that Sunday afternoon you get to share with your family after a long week? Or could it be that satisfaction that you are no longer facing a problem? Whether your ideal happiness is material or more sentimental, achieving such a thing has been proven to be difficult. Our society is awash with the ideal happiness. In an Op-Ed article from the L.A Times, How to buy happiness, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton discuss that you can actually be happier by spending money on others than on yourself. It’s the memories you make that matter rather than the money you have on your own. While on the other hand people like David Brooks, from The New York Times in What suffering does, think that it’s suffering that shapes you to become a happier person. The lessons you learn from suffering make you make better choices or even help you help others that have been in your situation or dilemma.

Happiness is something everyone seems to crave but doesn’t know how exactly to achieve it. In the society we live in it’s easy to believe getting the newest shoes or the iPhone 6 will increase ones happiness. While this stuff does increase happiness for some time, it’s mostly all for show, we want it because it’s what everyone else has which leads us to believe it will make us happier. The way to get these things is with money, mula, dinero etc. Money is something that is supposed to increase ones happiness because it can get us the things we want. But the things we want are not always the things we need. Yes, I think we all can agree material things are great, but something like the love of a friend or a family doesn’t compare to it. There are different theories out there but happiness can only come from within, only you can make yourself happy regardless of how you do it.

Happiness is what you want. It’s what everybody wants right. How do we come to achieve it though? It is not about buying the new iPhone or the latest Jordan’s. After all these are just materialistic things. What really brings person happiness is an experience a memory. Who did you go shopping with; remember what happened, that funny incident, that unbelievable thing. Money cannot buy happiness? Well that depends what you put your money towards. How you spend that dollar makes all the difference. Happiness is achieved through experiences, through thoughts, and actions.

What is your definition of happiness and can you explain it in an easy way to someone? Or is happiness just a “thing” that isn’t explainable and just an emotion or feeling? Can anybody buy happiness? Happiness has been put out to everyone that it can be bought and material things can make you happy. Having everything in the world does not necessarily make you happy, it has been proven that being rich and having all of the things in the world doesn’t make you happy but miserable. “How to buy happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky and the Op-Ed of “How to buy happiness” by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton both speak about the ways people think being happy is and what people do. But the reality of all of this is that happiness can’t be bought but it can be gained by experiences with others.

Happiness is one word, however with many meanings and definitions. For some people  happiness can mean wealth or for others happiness can be the moment they bring a child into this world. What exactly is happiness? What really makes us happy? The money or the moments? Or maybe buying happiness? In the article “How to buy happiness” by Sonia Lyubomirsky, it states “An additional strategy for buying happiness is to spend money on others instead of ourselves” and i believe that the best way to achieve great happiness is to make others happy.