Can money bring happyness?

Can money bring happyness?

The recent discuss about rich and poor on the forum reminded me the debate of ‘can money bring happiness’ in my head for a long time. I decided that money can bring us limited happiness, but it can’t fundamentally change how we feel. Do you agree?

After hearing the story below, I thought I understood a little better of both arguments.

- Money can’t bring happiness - For the rich, it’s hard to tell if the people around them are true friends or just want their money. It’s very sad for not being able to trust anyone and not having true friends.

- Money can bring happiness - For the girl in the story below, money can buy her happiness of being able to visit and spend time with her friends.


The girl had been close friends with a wealthy couple for a long time. They moved far apart after her graduation and their retirement to a remote small town. The couple had visited her a few times. Later on, they asked her to visit them and offered to pay the travel expenses, since they couldn’t travel anymore due to their age.

She had made excuses for not visiting because she didn’t have money for the tickets and didn’t want to accept their money either. Unfortunately, the gentleman passed away unexpectedly. She felt terrible for not seeing him before his death.

She didn’t want the same thing happen again with the lady. So she managed to come up with enough money and visited her. During the last day of her stay, the lady sat her down and asked her why she visited all of a sudden. In between the conversation, it finally dawned to her that the lady suspected that the purpose of her visit was asking for money.

After she had left, the lady realized that her friend sincerely wanted to see her and didn’t want any her money, she asked the friend to visit her again. The girl would be very happy to visit her friend. But now she is sad because she truly can’t afford the travel expenses once a year, she could not accept the rich lady’s offer of paying it, and she doesn’t want to make up excuses either.