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They say that money can't buy you happiness, and I guess that is right. There are other things such as friendship, love, and health that are just as important. However, it is certainly true that an absence of money can prevent happiness. If people are in poverty and having to worry about where their next meal is, or are worried about how they will support themselves and their family in retirement, then that will make it pretty difficult to be cheerful.

I think money's true value is in enabling us to have some of the basic things that in turn help us to enjoy life. Things like being able to own a house of our own, being able to take a holiday, and being able to go the the cinema or theatre, etc. There's also the peace of mind of having some money set aside should we hit harder times, or to know that we will be okay in our retirement.

There are undoubtedly also those who have a fixation upon being not just well off but being rich and in some cases extremely rich. People who have ten times as much money as they could ever hope to spend. I'm not sure however if a person who has ten million pounds in the bank is naturally any happier than someone who has one hundred thousand pounds? Indeed, I think the surveys that have been done on happiness have shown that once a person has covered their basic financial needs, there is not a direct correlation between increased wealth and increased happiness. Perhaps, the key to happiness, is to devout as much time to love and friendship and our health as we do to the pursuit of wealth?

Learn more about this author, Simon Wright.
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