Smart Pastor

We have known this without proof for some time, but now their is some research to back up our belief that money does not make us happier.  From Newsweek.com…

According to standard economics, the most important commodity you
can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your
pocket, you can decide between steak and peanut butter for dinner, but
if you have only $1 you’d better hope you already have a jar of jelly
at home. Additional wealth also lets you satisfy additional needs and
wants, and the more of those you satisfy the happier you are supposed
to be.

The trouble is, choice is not all it’s cracked up
to be. Studies show that people like selecting from among maybe half a
dozen kinds of pasta at the grocery store but find 27 choices
overwhelming, leaving them chronically on edge that they could have
chosen a better one than they did. And wants, which are nice to be able
to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs (iPod, anyone?), of which
an advertising- and media-saturated culture create endless numbers.
Satisfying needs brings less emotional well-being than satisfying wants.

Skipping down…

In a typical survey people are asked to rank their sense of well-being
or happiness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means "not at all satisfied
with my life" and 7 means "completely satisfied." Of the American
multimillionaires who responded, the average happiness score was 5.8.
Homeless people in Calcutta came in at 2.9. But before you assume that
money does buy happiness after all, consider who else rated themselves
around 5.8: the Inuit of northern Greenland, who do not exactly lead a
life of luxury, and the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, whose dung huts
have no electricity or running water. And proving Gilbert’s point about
money buying happiness only when it lifts you out of abject poverty,
slum dwellers in Calcutta—one economic rung above the homeless—rate
themselves at 4.6.

Yet our national affluence depends on perpetuating the myth. 

If more money doesn’t buy more happiness, then the behavior of most
Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade
after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual
is crucial for a national economy—that is, ever more growth and
consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if
people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will
make them happy … Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because
individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential
that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to
personal well-being." In other words, if you want to do your part for
your country’s economy, forget all of the above about money not buying
happiness.  (Source)

I think this one preaches, how about you?