Money Happiness

Happiness is defined as an emotional state of positive and pleasant emotions that create intense joy. After the basic necessities of life are accounted for the material possessions of happiness can be achieved. People usually think that people that are rich and live in mansions have more happiness but that is not the case. Rich people are actually less happy than non rich people because they have less satisfying social relationships. Having more meaningful social relationships is what people strive for. People can achieve happiness by setting meaningful goals and helping out others. Helping others can help people to connect with other people, enhance social relationships and they can view themselves in a more positive light. When a person becomes engaged in doing something that they enjoy and making progress they are happier. People become happier when they are engaged in the flow of a task that is challenging like writing, performing, or composing. Flow makes people loss track of time and where they are. Flow is a very pleasurable and absorbing state. Money doesn’t help people become happier.

A real life situation that really defines this concept is the life story of Stephen King the famous author of horror. Steven taught in a high school, but really desired to write professionally, but he had a family to support. He was able to get by on a teacher’s salary, but desired more from life and wanted to utilize his talents at a higher level. The rest of his life is history as far as his tremendous success goes, but did he find happiness. He experienced all the frustrations and threats to himself and his family’s safety as the public pushed into his personal life as he became more and more famous. He was discovering that being extremely rich did not bring with him happiness. He decided that besides the flow of his daily writing he would branch out into other areas to bring him satisfaction. He was able to discover that his small town was in drastic need of a little league field and park. His son wanted to play baseball and really had no where to do this activity. Mr. King bought property and paid to have a beautiful little league field and complex built in the rural state of Maine where he lives with his family. After these accomplishments he realized that this did bring him happiness and he was able to write better and feel more secure in his surroundings. Mr. King then heard that the only radio station in the area was going bankrupt and was on the brink of closing. Mr. King set out to change the course of the business and purchased the radio station. Today it remains running and successful because he pays for the total support of it and hires people to run it to make sure that the small town keeps their radio station. Mr. King is a real life experience of rag to riches story, but than the dissatisfaction with the wealth and how a person can change the course of their own life to reach a level of happiness by helping others.