“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating,” said Oscar Wilde, but, can money buy happiness? A recent study cited by The Economist called “Subjective Well-Being and Income: Is There Any Evidence of Satiation?” by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, says yes.1 Gallup pollsters created a “satisfaction ladder” in which the top rung represented highest satisfaction. Those polled were asked how high they are on the ladder from zero to 10, and how much they earn. Most people around the world reported more satisfaction the richer they were. And there seems to be no point where the respondent plateaued. In other words, satisfaction and income seem to be related linearly—which may be why the wealthy people you know never seem to have enough.
They are satiated but are they happy? The meaning of the word happiness is mutable. The author of the shopworn expression Money can’t buy happiness may have set us up and purposely picked a word with such liquid meaning that it could never be proven wrong. However, substitute almost any other word (comfort, health, security, etc.) for happiness and the negative expression Money can’t buy happiness is simply incorrect: Money can’t buy comfort. Yes it can. Money can’t buy health. Yes it can. Money can’t buy security. Yes it can. If money cannot buy happiness, it certainly can buy a lot of other things. The reason I believe this is because I have seen it. I have seen it in the contrasting lives of my clients; my wealthier clients have options that less-wealthy ones do not. And, I have seen it in me.
Maybe we need a new expression, such as Happiness is the only thing money can’t buy or Money can’t buy happiness—just everything else.
Then, there is Oscar Wilde, again, who wrote in his play A Woman of No Importance, “Who, being loved, is poor?” Maybe this is the all-purpose retort to Money cannot buy happiness. Or, maybe it’s Lee Iacocca, who lamented our sometimes-pathological fixation on money when he said, “I never in my lifetime saw so many people who are so affluent, yet so anxious. Is anybody happy anymore?”2
I think Craig Israelsen got closest to the essence of it when he said:
Consider this: money and wealth do not move with us through the veil of death, yet the skills attained through the righteous use of such resources are a permanent part of us. Temporal tasks that facilitate the development of spiritual characteristics such as patience, prioritizing, gratitude, self-mastery, self-reliance, and endurance are portable—and needed—beyond the grave.3
Yes. He said beyond the grave.
Accordingly, philosopher William James said, “The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”