More on Money and Happiness | Big Questions Online

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Some things to think about here. I've often half-joked that all I've ever wanted was for someone to PROVE to me that money can't make me happy. But the real truth is, maximizing your happiness isn't about how much you money you have, but how you invest it to get more of the things and experiences that make you happy.

More on Money and Happiness | Big Questions Online

[Elizabeth] Dunn is a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia, and in a new paper, she's teamed up with Dan Gilbert of Harvard University and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia to show us how we can spend our money to better maximize our happiness.

According to them, money "can buy many, if not most, if not all of the things that make people happy, and if it doesn't, then the fault is ours." Because, they say, we're not spending it right.

The problem, they argue, is that:

Most people don’t know the basic scientific facts about happiness—about what brings it and what sustains it—and so they don’t know how to use their money to acquire it. ... Money is an opportunity for happiness, but it is an opportunity that people routinely squander because the things they think will make them happy often don’t.