Читать книгу I Took the Only Path To See You - Jon Fisher - Страница 15

Perhaps the biggest myth that too many people believe is that money will make them happy. Yet they never define how much money would make them happy. If you had a dollar more, would you be happy? A thousand dollars more? A million? Ten million?

I guarantee that whatever amount of money you think will make you happy will never be enough because money alone can never make you happy. People think money will make them happy, but evidence consistently shows how wrong that can be.

Many people play the lottery because they fantasize about winning a fortune. Yet the list of multimillion-dollar lottery winners who consistently fail to find happiness is horrifying.

In 2002, construction company owner John Whittaker won $315 million in the Powerball lottery. Yet within five years, he had spent all his money. Even worse, his granddaughter developed a drug habit and died. When asked about his lottery winnings, Whittaker and his wife said if they could go back in time, they'd tear up that lottery ticket.

Evelyn Basehore won $3.9 million playing New Jersey's lottery. Incredibly, she kept playing the lottery and won another $1.4 million. Yet all that money went to relatives and poor investment choices. Then she gambled away the rest of the money in Atlantic City casinos, leaving her broke and forced to live in a trailer park, where she had to work two jobs just to pay her bills.

Abraham Shakespeare won $30 million and suddenly found himself hounded by people who wanted a share of his fortune. Before Shakespeare got murdered by his girlfriend, he told his few remaining friends, “I'd have been better off broke. I thought all these people were my friends, but then I realized all they want is just money.”

Still think money can buy happiness?

People want money because they think more money represents freedom. Money does give you more opportunities, but that also means more opportunities to screw up. When people say they want more money, what they're really saying is that they want more material possessions.

Just watch professional athletes who sign multimillion-dollar contracts and rush out to buy three sports cars, two homes, a stable of race horses, and a yacht. Buying objects that you couldn't afford before can be fun, but that enjoyment will only be momentary.

After that initial feeling of euphoria passes, you'll be left searching for happiness all over again. You can only spend so much and buy so many objects before you run out of money and lose track of all the objects you bought. If you can't define a precise dollar amount that will make you happy, that's a big clue that more money will never make you any happier in the long run.

If a doctor said you had one day left to live, what's worth more? A billion dollars or a cure that would keep you alive?