Can you buy happiness ?

In the article “How to buy happiness” by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, they speak about different ways a person can buy happiness. An example that they used was imagining to wake up with $1 million dollars and being able to spend all on yourself but what were you really gaining out of that? Just because you had all that money and the first thing a person would think to do is spend it on themselves doesn’t necessarily mean that they are happy. What they did was do a little experiment and handing out Starbucks gift cards to people and telling them to share it with another person of just giving their gift to another person and realizing how happy that made them instead of just keeping to themselves and not being happy at all. With this research they showed that you can find happiness by giving a gift to someone or sharing something with a person and sharing an experience with someone rather than alone. You can have all the money in the world but if you’re alone what good does that do for you? Wouldn’t sharing and giving something to a person and seeing them how happy you made them make you happy ?

I agree with this article, just because you may have a lot of money doesn’t mean that you are happy. Helping people and knowing that  you made someone smile and sharing the same experience with someone can make both you and that person happy. You can buy happiness by sharing it with others because it won’t make you happy as an individual if you just do things for yourself.