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Even if almost everything has a price tag. It is not a guarantee that having a lot of money will make us really happy. Rich people can afford to have every material thing desired because they have money. But I doubt if they are really happy. There are still things that they would want to find something else aside from the money that they own.
Money only takes care of our material needs while happiness is a state of mind. It is a decision. One's satisfaction is relative on how we adapt pleasure. In a third world country like mine, being able to put food on the table and with the family in tact is happiness in itself. That does not need a lot of money to fulfill but the satisfaction is priceless. That is how we believe it is. Money cannot buy inner peace of having a family sharing a meal together, sharing stories and getting along well.

We are not rich. Our earnings are usually hand to mouth each and every pay check. This is how we live. If you have to ask if we are happy? I would not mind saying "yes". We are happy. Not because we have everything that we need or we can always afford to buy what we need but the fact that we own something that money cannot buy. Our family. Our love for each other.
Of course we don't always have perfect moments as a family. We also get occupied with economic activities to primarily earn a living. Yet these activities that we engage with are motivated by our desire of living harmoniously together. There may be times that we get tempted to compare our family with affluent families in the neighborhood. And the dilemma begins. Human as we are we get ruled by envy and thats when money becomes a bad thing to think about. We begin to think much of ways to acquire more. We slave ourselves with the goal of getting more money to satisfy being envy. Unfortunately, we rarely get the contentment unless we condition ourselves to be satisfied of what we have. Thus, money does not really make us happy. It is just an instrument in exchange of the worldly needs.
The overwhelming feeling of buying our favorite food, signature clothes and other material things can wear off easily. Our satisfaction may vary from one point to the other and it is a cycle. If we cannot stop one moment and define what our priorities are, we will never be happy all our lives. Happiness is more than the money we earn. Its the value we put on what our money affords us and what it cannot.
I am not in the position to suggest the right money management. My grasp on how money works is limited only to my experience and I strongly believe that regardless of the quantity of money that we own, at the end of the day our happiness would depend of how we view our lives. The best things in life are still free because we simply have to think and decide.

Learn more about this author, Estela.
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