Can we buy happiness with money?
Happiness is not something sold in department stores or markets, so we cannot buy it with money. If we can buy happiness with money, whoever has more money should be happier. But it doesn’t work that way in reality. There is one way to buy happiness with money.
Professor Michael Norton of Harvard University conducted an experiment, where he gave $5 to $20 to two groups of people, and ordered one group to use the money for themselves and the other group for someone else. After this, he surveyed the index of their happiness; those who purchased accessories or coffee for themselves showed no difference in the happiness index, but those who bought or donated gifts for others got happier. The results were the same, regardless of the experiment participants’ conditions―whether they are from a well-to-do country or a poor country, from a company or an athletic team.
If you are not happy though you make a lot of money, or if you are unhappy because you earn less, it is likely that you are spending money in a wrong way. Happiness depends on how you spend money, not on how much you earn it.