Money cannot buy happiness

Coal Miners

I was thinking about this statement today. And it seems a paradoxical statement at first glance. If money cannot buy happiness why an average human spend a lifetime doing some work for wages. It reminds me a coal miner in the era of industrial revolution. With dirty ragged clothes and faces covered with coal dust, I have seen many of those nameless individuals who sacrificed their short time on earth for nothing but to dig up a tunnel in deep underground. I have seen their innocent smiles when their photos were taken. I am sure the little bit of money they earned from mining coal was enough for them to provide a wife and three children who were dependent. And they could buy some happiness from this money at the end of the day, just to cover up for the lost minutes.

Coal miner

Happiness is not for sale

Let's forget the sad struggle of commoners. Really? If money cannot buy happiness why struggle to make pennies. Why rich wants to become richer and poor march to increase the taxes. Why collect money for charity if we cannot bring happiness to the lives of who need it. Obviously the statement seems to false. Money can buy something. It is not happiness directly. As you can see happiness is not for sale in any supermarket or any market for that matter. What is for sale in any market is an experience. And that surely money can buy. But there is a little bit of logic we need to understand when we buy experiences from markets. So we do not waste precious pennies we earned mining coal.

Money cannot buy happiness It can buy an experience

When you buy a Discovery, a television or a bunch of roses for your girlfriend essentially you are buying an experience. An experience has two parts. Obviously there is our object of concern. Your purchase, and the usage of it. Then there is the person who is experiencing the object in the context, through his six senses. The objects themselves are just part of the equation. The experience itself is not merely the object. But it includes the reaction of the observer to the interaction of the object with the senses. It is simple. Let's do an example for the clarity.

Roses and visit to ED

Roses

Imagine you buy a bunch of roses, as it would look pretty in your living room. For a moment, moved by its fragrance you take a sniff on it, and a with the breath you accidently inhale and insect into your nostril. Now you pay a visit to ED, sitting there on a bench, Sunday afternoon, and with the help of a ENT doctor who kindly end your experience with roses. This is just an unlikely scenario with your freshly bought roses. Nonetheless the future is unpredictable, even a good experience can turn out bad. We can look at another alternate scenario.

Imagine the insect did not happen and you just decorated your living room with it. And you left the room to visit your friend and forget about the roses. Just to see them withered away in two days. Compare this to the scenario where you happened to notice your roses multiple times throughout the day and you could sit and appriciate its beauty for half an hour while you were having a coffee.

As you can see all these alternate scenarios are possible. And all of these seem to be present in alternate universes. Unfortunately only one of them will happen and whatever that experience will decide whether it will end up a happy or a sad experience for you. Fortunately, if we consider the word non deterministic, for the sake of living we have the ability to tweak our reaction to the experience and buy happiness with money. Even if you do not have money, certainly you can have experience, as that is fundemental state of living. You just have to see the positive aspect of the experience. So that even the afternoon spent at the ED with a swollen nostrils doesn't end up in waste basket of your life.