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Wealth and Happiness

Decent Essays
Wealth and happiness
The human kind has always strived towards power, and wealth is one of the necessities for those who want this power. However, nowadays many seek wealth, because they want the freedom that money can grant, and thus become happier. Some people tend overrate how much happier they will get by becoming rich. That leads to the question: “Can you buy happiness?”
1.
In the first text, David Brooks tries to explain the correlation between wealth and happiness. With Sandra Bullock’s experience as an example, he tries to prove his point that getting richer only will make you a little bit happier, as in the USA, where the country has gotten a lot richer during the last 50 years, but not happier than before. However, he does
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Another thing he does is giving his personal opinion: “Nonetheless, if you had to take more than three seconds to think about this question you are absolutely crazy”. This will either make us agree or disagree. No matter what it makes us think, maybe even after we have read the article, and thus he has engaged us in the problem and the text.

3.
Whether spending money brings happiness or not, depends on the individual. Many believe that getting rich will automatically make you happier. According to Peter Singer, and his data from Science there is practically no correlation between money and happiness. Moreover, he claims that rich people are spending more time on activities, which are associated with negative feelings. This is probably because of their job that might be more stressful and have more work hours, than those who do not earn quite as much have. Although this might be a bad deal in the short run, exchanging happiness for money. In the long run it can result in a greater feeling of joy, than it would ever have been possible, by giving up on the well-paying, but stressful job, to live a more poor, but happier life. The Warren Buffet incident is a perfect example. Not only thinking about the happiness he got for himself, but also the millions of persons whose lives was improved or even saved by Buffet.

In addition, when people have acquired a large amount of money, the way they spend it can have an impact on how much happier they will become.
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