Materialism

As long as I can remember, I've loved video games. Growing up, I used them to fill a void in my life that grows bigger with age - I will never regret the time I've spend playing them. Now, I'm no addict or World of Warcraft type nerd with no higher aspirations than to get a special set of virtual armor. When I have more interesting things going on I don't even play. Quite frankly I find myself baffled because it's hard to even find the motivation to play games anymore. Even so, they've played a major role in my life, acting as a supplement for non-tangeble things I didn't feel I had. I thank my parents because I'm well off materially, but life has forced me into the awareness that money doesn't by happiness. Indeed, we hear this all the time and I haven't just discovered this.

The simple fact that money can't buy long lasting happiness dawns on every day continually. I have now reached the point where because of my cunning I am able to obtain many games for free. Because of my father's good job, I can get a new game relatively quickly. I am on top of new releases and I know what to get and when to get it. All this said however, I notice that in the end all I'm left with is a lot of plastic. Some of it is very useful, it inspires creativity and critical thinking (at least for me) but in the end I'm just playing the escapist. Bottom line is this: I know money can't buy me happiness, but damn I wish it could.

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Comment by Riv on May 23, 2010 at 1:37pm: I have been poor most of my life. I KNOW that money can't buy happiness but I think that it can be an impediment to happiness and a it is, obviously, a major cause of stress. If I had more money, I would have more TIME to do things and concentrate on things that make me happy. Call me shallow, if you will, but I think that money can buy serenity and sanity to some degree.

Comment by Radu Andreiu on May 23, 2010 at 4:48pm: Having money means you can have more time to enjoy life and to pursue happiness; that's if you don't spend your money on drugs, excessive quantities of food, or other things that can shorten your life and/or affect its quality.

I only aspire to having money to have more resources to do what I truly love, but there are some things for which I don't need any money to enjoy. That being said, I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotations:

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein (who else?)

Comment by Shine on May 24, 2010 at 4:07pm: Call me shallow, if you will, but I think that money can buy serenity and sanity to some degree.

I agree. "Happiness" is an elusive, relative state that is nearly impossible to pin down and certainly not guaranteed by money. However, the serenity of not worrying about how to pay for the basic necessities of life--i.e., food, shelter, clothing--is very real and is guaranteed by money.

Of course, it's all relative; once we can afford our basic "needs" we are still left unfulfilled and thus the cycle of unhappiness persists. I think that it boils down to a general confusion between "needs" and "desires." (I fully include myself in this confusion as I frequently find myself agonizing over trivialities which are ultimately not "needs" at all.)

Still, money does buy time. Maybe true happiness is acheived when one learns how to best utilize this time?

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