Is a bottle of old Lafitte wine really worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is a small portion of Kobe beef really worth 160 dollars? Is pasta with white truffles worth a 120 dollars?
Can happiness be bought? To find out, author Benjamin Wallace sampled the world’s most expensive products, including a bottle of 1947 Chateau Cheval Blanc, 8 ounces of Kobe beef and the fabled (notorious) Kopi Luwak coffee. His critique may surprise you.
If you know a wine is expensive you probably will taste it but also your brain on MRI signals that you experience more pleasure.
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This Ted Talk was great and reinforced what I believe, that “things” whether expensive or not don’t buy happiness, however…
I think a certain amount of money can help with happiness. Enough money to buy a small, clean, warm, and safe home in a city/town you want to live in, so you can own pets and have a safe place that is yours, with no risk of being kicked out of your rental place, or losing the home you live in. (It is scary to be a renter in Vancouver, no one allows pets and there ar5e very few affordable places to live).
Enough money to buy food, not just a can of beans to survive on, but food you enjoy might help with happiness. Enough money to be able to experience life and the world, to go do the things you like to do: travel, concerts, plays movies, art classes etc.
I’m not saying money can buy happiness, but I think it can lessen your stress levels to have an amount of money that allows you to be comfortable in this world.
That said, I suppose everyone’s amount is different, some need very little and some may need (or think they need) a lot. It always strikes me as strange that people with millions of dollars hoard the money rather than giving what they don’t need to charity.
Imagine what the world would be like if all that hoarded money was evenly distributed to others who needed it more. That might buy happiness for others, which in turn might increase the givers happiness.
…aqua
@Aqua A certain amount of money can make live a little easier indeed, kind regards Dr Shock