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Right from childhood we have heard from elders that money cannot buy happiness. During childhood most of us took it with a pinch of salt because we thought when parents have lots of money, they can buy lots of gifts for us and we always felt gifts brought us some joy.

During childhood, our needs were mostly simple; in childhood innocence, the relative costs of goods were mostly non-issues. A marble or a top costing a few pennies owned by a neighborhood poor boy may look to be too attractive for a rich boy who has a few automatic toy cars worth several dollars. He may even be willing to exchange his toy car the wooden top!

So, in childhood, possessing something that we loved to have, gave us joy irrespective of the item's worth in money. We also knew another fact of life in childhood at the back of our minds. Whatever that gave us joy had only a transient and relative worth. We were ready to throw away a teddy bear that we carried hugging all day long, the moment we come across of a new, more attractive and novel toy!

== The source of transient pleasure - money or possessions? ==

As we grew up and lost our childhood innocence, we also forgot what we learned from at the back of our minds about happiness. In childhood, we were willing to throw away things we were formerly attached to; we never calculated their money value. But as grown ups, we start clinging to our possessions. Even if we have lost the pleasure of our possession, we develop attachment to them. We think thrice before discarding something, because we had spent our hard earned money in acquiring them.

Did the money bring happiness when we originally acquired the possession? It appeared to be so. Did the money ensure the presence of happiness for ever on our possession? No it didn't. Did money act as a hindrance in getting rid of what we no longer consider as pleasure giving? Sometimes it looks to be so!

So, it is clear that the pleasure or pain that we associate with something is actually related to our attachment to the possession. But our conditioned mindset that tells us that acquiring and possessing gives us pleasure. The more we increase our cravings for such possessions, the more we run around to earn money to afford them.

== Does lack of money cause unhappiness? ==

It seems to be definitely so. A poor man who is always short of money to fill his stomach with 3 square meals a day is definitely unhappy. One who does not have money to buy cloth to protect him from heat or cold is definitely unhappy.

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