How to Find Happiness without Buying Your Way Into Misery

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Dear God we are a mixed up species, aren't we? Most of us want nothing more than to be happy in life but, most of us do everything possible to go the opposite direction almost every single day. We truly are our own worst enemies.

We assume money will be our salvation so we work ourselves to death in miserable jobs and spend 95% of our lives unhappy in the hopes that those last 5% will be enjoyable. Of course, by then, we are too old, too tired, too bitter and too beaten down to really get out of life what we should be thanks to that 95% life spent unhappy.

Real happiness isn't about a herculian struggle for some vague objective at the end of the race. That may bring a brief taste of joy, but who wins? Is it the guy who found great pleasure throughout his life or the guy who finally meets his financial goals at 73 only to die two years later? I think that's an easy one to answer. The good news is that, if you really have your heart set on being wealthy, you can accomplish both wealth and regular happiness through your life on your road to riches. It just requires some common sense approaches.

"Work at what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." I don't know to whom to attribute that quote, but it is a little touch of genius. Jobs don't have to be miserable affairs. There's a world full of people perfectly content to do the jobs nobody really wants to do. Nobody says you have to be one of them.

While the jobs we enjoy may not always be the most profitable, smart spending and saving can do a lot to turn moderate earnings into vast riches at the end of the game. So find something you love, determine how there's money to be made at it and get to work not working. To manage both the goal of enjoyable employment and eventual wealth you may have to make a few common sense changes. These aren't really sacrifices, if you think about it.

For example, that impulse purchase of an expensive big screen TV will land you some short-term joy but will probably translate into long term misery. Gee, the game looks great, but I can no longer rely on the meager income from my SCUBA teaching job to pay the bills. Time to get some soul-sucking corporate desk job complete with 2 hour commute. Now you are miserable 8-12 hours a day for a couple hours of "fun" in front of an obscenely large television screen you didn't really need.

We buy our way into misery every day with credit card debt, over extension and dumb purchases. We sacrifice long-term, consistent happiness for short bursts of joy that only last until the first credit card bill arrives. There are hundreds of ways of being happy in life but many of them require taking a little bit of time. Time to get enough sleep, time to stop and "smell the roses," time to appreciate. Our lack of foresight in trying to "buy" our way to happiness eventually deprives us by forcing us into lines of work that eat up our available time and rob us of the little joys in life that lead to real happiness.

I enjoy writing. Specifically, I enjoy writing fictional work, but pretty much any writing is at least relatively pleasurable to me. I may find myself at much greater peace writing about the exploits of a hero in some far away, fanciful universe than I do when writing commercially (some would argue that is commercial writing), but I can do both. And even when writing purely commercial work for extended periods of time, I find ways to make that pleasurable. Believe it or not, even topics as seemingly dry as air mattress beds lend themselves to an occasional humorous quip or comment. If you are a creative writer, you can find a way to spin select comfort beds into a funny story. I've gone so far as to prove the point and received hundreds of "OMG, LOL" comments for my effort.

So, while there are hundreds of ways to bring happiness into your life, I'm only recommending two for now (though I suspect I'll revisit this topic again soon); find a way to make money doing what you love and stop trying to buy happiness. Following that first piece of advice will lead you to a lifetime of joy. Following the second will give you the time and financial flexibility to afford it.