In Pursuit of Happiness in ‘09
You have to question whether money buys happiness when you hear about all the rich and famous people who are or were not happy. They are the ones that have succumbed to drug and alcohol addiction at various times in their lives. If money buys happiness then why did these people turn to drugs and alcohol? I believe they had voids within themselves that led them to these addictions - an obvious sign they weren’t truly happy. Well, what about other people who are financially well-off, but not famous? Are they happy because they have money to buy all the material things they desire?
Growing up I had a friend Cindy, who I went to school and church with. Her family was very financially secure. She was a beautiful girl with blond hair and blue eyes. She lived in a beautiful house. Her family had many expensive cars and took awesome vacations every year. She was well-liked by her friends because she was modest and not in the least bit snobbish. My friends and I thought she had the most wonderful life. We thought she had it all!
As time went on my friends and I grew up and scattered to various parts of the continent. Some of us moved out west, others stayed in the east. Cindy and her family moved south to the beautiful State of Florida. She lived in an even bigger and better house than she lived in here. Her father bought her a Corvette for her 18th birthday. Wow! She was really living the life…or so we thought.
More time went on and some of my friends got married, some had kids, some of us got divorced. We were all living quite normal lives but none of us had any substantial amount of wealth, except for Cindy. Cindy didn’t get married or have any kids. She continued to enjoy the luxuries that money can buy and lived at home. She got her Master’s degree in Sociology, which was far more education than the rest of us got. We all admired her for her achievements and we all assumed she was happy.
Well, we all assumed wrong. A few days short of Cindy’s 42nd birthday she committed suicide. My friends and I were all in shock! Cindy had everything that money can buy, and a wonderful family and an excellent education. How could she have done this? I laid in bed at night pondering this thought for weeks. Then I decided to dig out all my old photos of Cindy. As I looked at them I realized that she had never been happy. She was never smiling in her photos, or only half-smiling. Any bit of a smile seemed to be forced. Why had I never noticed that before? That was when I realized that money doesn’t buy happiness.
Written by Cynthia Romero, author of the Smile More Today and Tomorrow website.
This post was written by: Erin
Tags: hopes and dreams, new years resolution, redding california, war and peace