In a completely unsurprising story out of Manhattan, NY, the words “money isn’t everything” were just spoken at brunch by someone who, conveniently, has lots of it.
“Having money’s not everything, not having it is."
I disagree even with this, though I know it’s a common sentiment/expression.
For the first couple of decades of my life, I had little to no to negative money, depending on when we’re talking about. Not having money sure was everything.
Since then, I have slowly but steadily improved my financial status. I guess I might be middle class now, but what that means is different to everybody. Anyway, now, I can afford to pay someone to come help me with housekeeping a couple of times a month. I’m also disabled and can’t handle it myself. So once again, money is everything.
Even if I reached a point where I was so wealthy that money didn’t mean anything, it would still be everything because I would still need it to be paying all of the people who would be helping me.
Money is necessary, but not sufficient
“They say money cant buy happiness, I guess I’ll have to rent it!” - Weird Al
Money isn’t everything, but we live in a society where you need it to get anything.
Money doesn’t buy happiness, but good fucking luck being happy when people will merrily let you starve if you don’t give them money.
Now, what does buy happiness and is basically everything? Other people, social interaction, having support networks.
Knowing everyone in your neighbourhood and supporting each other if you need help is an extremely cheap way to give each other a baseline of happiness and make life feel more whole.
I mean, if I wanted to be charitable about this, a person who has a lot of money is exactly the kind of person to know that money isn’t everything, because they would presumably have the experience of still having problems or wants or still being unhappy sometimes even in spite of their money. That isn’t to say that money doesn’t mean a lot of things even if not everything though, or that someone telling someone without enough money to not require a job to live and spend frivolously to not worry about money isn’t out of touch for not understanding that some of the things that money can buy are essentials required to live one’s life in the first place.
Through my job I’ve knows two billionaires; one inherited it all through a business his father built, the other acquired it all through a business he built.
Neither seemed any happier than you or me; they travelled in more luxury, for sure, and their clothes cost a bit more; they of course also had multiple houses, which they couldn’t really use at the same time and one of them had an enormous yacht and private jets (plural). It all looked very fancy but I don’t know that their happiness increased commensurately.
I think once you have a roof over your head, food on the table and don’t have to worry about what the next year or two looks like, you’re 97% there. The last 3% is influenced by money, but not determined by it.
