How do you convince someone

Depends on the person. For some, material gain can bring happiness, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. For others, possessions are not necessary for happiness. Neither the former nor the latter is better than the other.

I think happiness is more about freedom than money; the freedom to act according to one's own whims and desires. Money can certainly facilitate such freedom, but ironically the traditional way of acquiring money is by submission to the drudgery of work: the more/harder you work, the more money you make. So it's really a matter of what one wants from one's freedom: if one wants expensive things or experiences, one must compromise by working to afford them. If, however, all one wants from freedom is leisure time to enjoy without expensive toys, but with, say, a loved one, or perhaps pursuing artistic interests, money is not the answer. The real problem is that most people don't really consider what would truly make them happy; instead they focus on popular conceptions or media portrayals of happiness, and then wind up having toiled their lives away without having met their own personal desires.

tl;dr

Happiness is a warm gun (bang, bang, shoot, shoot).

It's sorta like drugs. you gotta watch out. Don't rely on it for happiness, but it can sure leave you laughing with your friends. It can also magnify your own issues and neurosis.

You'll know what you need.

I'm on research student pay now, which seemed amazing to me when I moved on to that from minimum wage, but is actually about as low as graduate salaries go. To some of my friends I'm rich and to others I'm a chump. It's all relative. It's like when you are 5 everyone from 15-50 might as well be the same age. But unlike ageing, your salary will probably reach an upper limit whether you like it or not.

Personally I'm more worried about hating my day to day life than how much money I end up making. I do need to make more money though, so I can afford to get a house or have a family or pay into a pension plan and stuff like that. There is definitely an upper limit beyond which I would feel a bit embarrassed by how much money I have, I know people who own about 8 cars and I feel like they have lost touch with the reality I live in a bit.

Oh and another thing,

I think people's desire for money is often based on the wealth they grew up with. A lot of men just want to get to where there dad was and salary is a nice easy measure of that. I'm pretty sure my dad would think of me as a success if I end up on a salary like he was on.

  On 9/23/2010 at 1:19 PM, troon said:

money is the root of all evil - money's distract us and keep us locked down to temporal existence.

they consumes us, we become slaves to the pursuit of them (more or less) instead of the

pursuit of those thing which truly are important.

Troon bible fail. The quote is "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil." Money is an important tool. Remember why it was originally created.

Look what money did to this cunt:-

Hey you, click here.

I can't say that a large amount of money would ever change me.

Then again I suppose it didn't change dear old Carroll.

  On 9/23/2010 at 6:46 PM, Babar said:

what'xs the median/average wage in the us ?

Here, let me Google that for you...

And, just so you really don't have to search for it, in 2008, it was 52,029USD

^thats a household income, try googling harder

  On 9/23/2010 at 7:36 PM, hautlle said:

  On 9/23/2010 at 1:19 PM, troon said:

money is the root of all evil - money's distract us and keep us locked down to temporal existence.

they consumes us, we become slaves to the pursuit of them (more or less) instead of the

pursuit of those thing which truly are important.

troon bible fail. The quote is "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil." Money is an important tool. Remember why it was originally created.

did you see official quotations round that shit? - i stand behind my original statement - money is the root of all evil.

there's a fine line between loving money and just comfortably and willingly using it - sounds like fucking paper thin semantics to me

(no offense)

Fuck, this is such a troon thread. Tell me Troon, do you have a bank account?

I have a bank account and oh Mary let me tell you folks it is full to the brim... With money

the difference is chassis, i will never stop trying to change. every fucking day i wake up and make another step forward in the direction of the truth, in the direction that i stand for - some day i will completely break free from falseness.

we are here to push against these corrupt systems - not just lay down and except the status quo - good questions might be - can we envision another system that would work

better? do we want change? if so how hard are we willing to work for it? what are we willing to do with out in the mean time to get it?

if we interact with things we disagree with on regular basis we should never let them change the way we feel about them - we should never succumb to them - we can drive a car and hate cars - hating them is a step in transitioning

away from driving them. we can use money and hate money - the more we hate it the more likely it is that we will one day break free from it and start a new world wide economy based

on equality, shared opportunities and abundance.

  Quote

How do you convince someone That money does not bring happiness

you kick their ass in a money bin

give me money

  On 9/23/2010 at 8:45 PM, Joy Rex said:

And, just so you really don't have to search for it, in 2008, it was 52,029USD

yeah, sorry, it was very lazy of me. Thanks by the way. It seems like a huge amount of money to me but the median (around 45 000) is probably more significant as american incomes tend show a higher disparity, than, said in Europe. In France the median income is around 25k/y (after numerous taxes, social security, pension etc...). I tried to find a way to compare french and american wages but it's seems like it's s something quite difficult to do. I found Americans buying power is roughly 1.5x higher to which my cousin commented "all this to buy a truck and a secondary house in the middle of nowhere". Jealousy.

As for money problems in my family, there are some. My grandmother has three sons, one of them being quite poor after getting ripped off by a crooked bookkepper when he was setting up an internet startup in the early 90s. Meanwhile my other uncle married a cupid woman who threaten to sue my grand mother because she was financially helping my poor uncle. To avoid this, my grand mother gave 5000€ to all her grandsons/daughters except the sons of my poor uncle because they already received a similar amount of money when they started going to college. Despite this, when they learned I received 5000€, i could feel they were slightly jealous, for example they would say "I don't care, I'll be rich later" as they're talented which i'm not. It didn't durably damage our relationship though.

I personally don't give a shit about this money, I wouldn't mind if it would suddenly disappear but that's probably because i'm still living in the comfort of the familial home and have no yet developed a sense of realities.

etc... good night

  On 9/23/2010 at 11:46 PM, troon said:

the difference is chassis, i will never stop trying to change. every fucking day i wake up and make another step forward in the direction of the truth, in the direction that i stand for - some day i will completely break free from falseness.

we are here to push against these corrupt systems - not just lay down and except the status quo - good questions might be - can we envision another system that would work

better? do we want change? if so how hard are we willing to work for it? what are we willing to do with out in the mean time to get it?

 

if we interact with things we disagree with on regular basis we should never let them change the way we feel about them - we should never succumb to them - we can drive a car and hate cars - hating them is a step in transitioning

away from driving them. we can use money and hate money - the more we hate it the more likely it is that we will one day break free from it and start a new world wide economy based

on equality, shared opportunities and abundance.

Talk is cheap. Driving a car and hating a car at the same time doesn't mean you're doing anything positive, by the way. That's just called hypocrisy and self-loathing.

Here, have a condescending smiley to help let you know how I feel about self-righteous internet hippies.

fill your house with gold and jade and you will need a guard to protect it

  On 9/24/2010 at 2:41 AM, luke viia said:

  On 9/23/2010 at 11:46 PM, troon said:

the difference is chassis, i will never stop trying to change. every fucking day i wake up and make another step forward in the direction of the truth, in the direction that i stand for - some day i will completely break free from falseness.

we are here to push against these corrupt systems - not just lay down and except the status quo - good questions might be - can we envision another system that would work

better? do we want change? if so how hard are we willing to work for it? what are we willing to do with out in the mean time to get it?

 

if we interact with things we disagree with on regular basis we should never let them change the way we feel about them - we should never succumb to them - we can drive a car and hate cars - hating them is a step in transitioning

away from driving them. we can use money and hate money - the more we hate it the more likely it is that we will one day break free from it and start a new world wide economy based

on equality, shared opportunities and abundance.

 

 

Talk is cheap. Driving a car and hating a car at the same time doesn't mean you're doing anything positive, by the way. That's just called hypocrisy and self-loathing.

 

Here, have a condescending smiley to help let you know how I feel about self-righteous internet hippies.

you obviously don't entirely understand what i'm saying - or your dim - or both

you give them a penny

Troon, I just don't agree with you that there is a "truth" that everyone can agree upon and work towards. Truth is relative, you know this. I may have said this before, but i'd be interested in having a one on one conversation w/ you about these broad views you hold. They're interesting, it just seems to me like they skirt over a lot of important issues. Feel free to message me sometime if you want.

Anyway.

I thought there was some study done recently that said money only buys happiness up to the point where it takes care of your basic needs. After that, it may get you more things, but happiness isn't in the list.

However, i just bought a new sampler a few days ago, and it has brought me much joy.