Living through yet another Valentine’s day got me thinking about ’what is happiness’.  Given North America’s fixation with materialism, is money the key to happiness? 

I read that a woman in England won $2M in a lottery.  She put the money in a bank account, did not touch the money (except for some normal day to day expenses) nor did she tell her husband and 2 kids.  Reason?  She didn’t want to impact what she thought was a perfect middle-class life and a solid family chemistry.  Apparently her husband was once a drug addict and with this windfall she feared he would quit his job and want to live a more decadent lifestyle.  The kids, well they would become spoiled brats no doubt.  YadaYadaYada.

What do you think about that?  Do you feel that the kids and father are unjustly being denied a rare opportunity to dramatically better their lives?  Or do you feel for the mother and applaud her heroic attempt to shelter her family from potential downfall?  Hmmm, I’m betting you’re feeling anger towards mum. 

The truth of the matter is, money is the cornerstone of our society today.  Our needs from basic to indulgence all require cold hard cash.  Gone are the days of trade of goods for services.  Therefore, unless you find happiness in begging for handouts or joining that oh-so-popular monastery or cult-city, you ain’t gonna be happy without money.  Good luck finding that house in the wilds and living off nature – as if you’d be happy there anyway.

The proof is in the pudding – studies show rich countries have happier people than ‘middle-class’ countries.  In turn, middle-class countries have happier people than poor countries.  If you don’t believe me, simply try walking 10 miles to find crappy water, come home, find your child on her death-bed and sigh helplessly because there’s no medical assistance within 30 miles.  Or, go to work, whine about how monotonous or ‘hard’ your job is clacking away at the keyboard, come home, throw a steak on the BBQ, share dinner with your wife and 2 1/2 kids and settle in for a night of American Idol on the new HD 42″ plasma.  Or, wake up at noon, drag your arse to the jacuzzi, go for a swim, take the HumVee down to Rodeo Drive and blow some coin on some bling and a bottle of Dom – slip over to the summer home and get trashed on your pool table while watching your HD 1000″ plasma.  How would you rank these scenarios on the happy scale?

You may say that “Love, health, family and friends are way more important to happiness”.  This I can concur with.  But, isn’t it so much easier to acquire all of the above when you have money?  Tough to have any of those when you’re a bum on the streets my friend.

So, the next time you hear about that millionaire that is sad or unhappy, it’s likely been made up to make the poorer people feel better for themselves and to validate their illusions that they don’t necessarily need more money to be happier.

I’ll end this with two little gems I found ironic:

1)  A Nova Scotian won $500K in 1984 – drank it ALL away with his pals in 11 weeks!

2)  A Canadian won $10M in 1998, lost it all to partying – hung himself in 2005

How much money do you need to be happy?  That of course is the key.  Have fun trying to figure it out.  Why else are you nesting away your coin into RRSPs and other instruments that you are praying have a solid ROI when you retire?  Just remember, like the guy who won the $10M - whether you have money or whether you don’t, everybody ends up facing the reaper.

Edit:  BTW, I personally would like to think I fall in the middle.  I enjoy the steak on the BBQ with my wife and 2 1/2 kids, but would love to have the wealth to at least say I could do the bling thing if I wanted to.