From my article How to Find Happiness Without Buying It at Dumb Little Man:

“Our materialistic society has led us to believe that happiness cannot be obtained without having money. Rather than learning to be satisfied with what we have, we are taught to want more. We learn from advertising, and from the media, that we need to buy trinkets and toys in order to make ourselves happy, or to fulfill emotional needs, and that the purchases they are trying to talk us into will provide us with the psychological comfort we are looking for.

Unfortunately as a society we have bought into these misguided messages and have come to believe that spending money on certain items will bring us fame, fortune, happiness, beauty, or popularity. We end up using money as a crutch to provide us with something we ultimately must find within ourselves. As we become caught up in this charade, we trade precious hours of our lives trying to earn the money we have been taught to covet so much. We trade hours of our lives working, sacrificing time that could have been spent with our families, for the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

In order to find true happiness, we first must learn to change our attitudes about money.”

Read the rest of How to Find Happiness Without Buying It at Dumb Little Man.

Thanks to Life Insurance Lowdown for including this post in the Carnival of Life, Happiness, and Meaning.