Money Can Always Buy Happiness

It is one of those bogus sayings that poor folks repeat until it becomes accepted wisdom. They burn their last $20 on lottery tickets and, of course, don’t win. Stuck eating peanut butter and stale marked-down bread another week, they sigh: “Ah well, money can’t buy happiness.” Really? Is that why you keep trying?

They say it again when another “celebrity” enters drug rehab. Money just took Blondie McDipp from a two year cocaine, booze, and wanton sex romp, to a luxurious “facility" with gourmet nutrition and socially acceptable replacement drugs from state-licensed drug lords. Put all that happiness on the celebrity moron’s bill.

Money may not always buy happiness, but it most certainly can. You just have to use it properly.

Doodads do not deliver delight. Your Cambodian Nose-Hair Trimmer, Dominican Lawn Ornament, or Ugandan Shoe Glitter Kit will not make you feel better beyond the joyous initial penetration of its unyielding plastic packaging. Be grateful instead, after sniffing a flame to remove stragglers, that you don’t inhale burning hair often. Be satisfied by decorating your yard with a big rock, knowing no one will bother to steal it or smash it with a baseball bat. And forget the glitter, it’s like a terminal disease: no matter how hard you scrub, it never quite goes away.

Buying life insurance will not bring “peace of mind” (the mellow version of happiness.) The problem with “life insurance” is that it only pays off when you are “dead.” What a scam! Pay money every month to make sure your angry wife and lazy offspring get it later? It is a miracle of salesmanship made possible by cultural death-denial. Better to use “insurance” money for a monthly party, thus “insuring” that you have an actual life. Mama will cheer up, and the kids can learn the traditional drug addictions (alcohol tobacco caffeine and sugar) in a warm and friendly environment. Or, if they see adults acting like drunken idiots, go “straight edge”, which may or may not be happier but is certainly cheaper than every addiction.

A new car won’t make you happy. The joy is shaken with the first depreciating bump out of the lot, and fades monthly. When you are still making payments on a fender-dented, spill-stained, stinky-juice-leaking, clattering at each bump like a cow-bell piece of mostly-plastic crap, your only emotion is anger.

Buying a house is worse. Sure, it looks nice, all empty and clean. But with all your crap moved in, it looks disappointingly the same. And due to EEFA rules (Everything Eventually Falls Apart), you will now spend most of your valuable spare time fixing broken stuff, or working a second job so you can pay someone else to fix it. How many people do you know who paid off their mortgage? Owning a home is part of the American Dream because it is, indeed, a dream. The American Reality is that the only legacy you will leave your surviving loved (or tolerated) ones, will be a crumbling shack and a monthly payment.

Would giving your money to a church make you happy? Maybe, if you’d like to help some fruity pastor, who may never have worked an honest day in his or her life, tell people what not to do. Churches want money for “missions,” to convince us heathens that no matter what we believe, it’s wrong, that their church alone is right, and that we will burn forever if we don’t agree. This brings us great joy and peace, and the pastor gets a new car. Suddenly, coke, booze, and wanton sex seem quite sensible.

It is never possible to purchase happiness by “investing.” Investors are nervous wrecks, trying to supernaturally predict bubbles and pops. Only a few lucky pricks, that “manage” the investments, manage to get rich, the rest lose. What a great system! Like casinos, with slightly better odds if you read a few thick books first.

Paying for a warm dry place to sleep, and enough food and drinkable water to stay alive, sets the stage for possible happiness. Spoiled North Americans may add heated water and a flush toilet for contentment optimization.

And if, through some accident of hard work, theft, or luck, you actually have extra money, simply give it to someone who hasn’t got any. Poor people given sums of money become instantly happy, no matter how fleetingly. See? Money can always buy happiness!