We know that money is not the main motivation to create a company and take the path of the entrepreneur. But it is undoubtedly one of the engines, in fact, for many people, money does buy happiness.
Surely you know that you want to be happy, but surely you don’t know how money will help you to be happy; since we have always heard that money does not buy happiness; and we have a large number of arguments to justify that idea. But what if we have been using money in the wrong way?
The idea of ”being happy” is completely relative. For some it may be the sensation during the concert of their favorite artist. Others are happy traveling; for others to drive a latest model car. But no matter what it is, you must understand that money, depending on how it is used, can give you happiness and take it away completely.
And not really invest in an apartment. It is as long as you invest in one of these 2 things:
1. Invest in experiences
We tend to think that an object makes us happier than an experience, for a simple reason. The experience has an end, while the object will be with us longer; and for this it will make us happy for a long period of time.
Thomas Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell University who has studied the relationship between money and happiness for more than 2 decades, argues that claim is false.
Thomas claims that the number 1 enemy of happiness is the adaptation. He says that we buy things that make us happy but only for a while. Since new things excite us but only at the beginning; then we adapt.
Ironically, the constant presence of objects is what makes them go from being extraordinary to normal. While the result of living experiences shapes us as human beings and becomes part of our identity.
“You may actually like your material things and you may even think that your identity is connected to your belongings. However, they are not part of you. On the other hand, your experiences are, since we are the sum of all these” says Thomas.
Another reason why it is claimed that money does buy happiness is argued by Michael Norton, a professor of business administration at Harvard. He remembers the question we asked at the beginning of the article: what if we’ve been spending money the wrong way?
2. Invest in others
In 2011, CNN published an article titled: Does Winning the Lottery Guarantee Happiness? They interviewed several winners and for most, winning was a disgrace. The reason is simple. They spent the money and were left in debt, or because close people and/or relatives were after the money.
Michael Norton affirms that these are some of the reasons why having money makes us antisocial, and as a consequence, the acts of envy reflected in the expenses that we make only to ourselves.
“Money makes us antisocial and increases acts of envy.”
Michael, in his TED talk entitled: How to buy happiness, tells that he wondered: What would happen if we made people spend their money on other people?
So they got two groups together. They asked them how happy they were and distributed envelopes with different amounts of money.
One group had to spend the money on themselves, while the other on someone else. They checked that the activity had been carried out correctly and talked to the participants again in the evening.
The group that spent the money on themselves felt the same way no matter how much money they had to spend. While the group that spent the money on someone else was happier.
Different experiments like this one were carried out in various societies and the result was always the same. They also did it in work groups and found that people who spent on others were more comfortable working and getting better results.
Now you know. If you use your money on experiences or on others, you will see that money does buy happiness.
And remember, if you are really interested in creating your own business, you can read our book “How to create a company while working: Discover how to manage your time, manage your money and motivate yourself while creating a company and working for another” , where you will find all the information you need to found your own company, without having to leave your job.
