Day 134: Your Money or Your Life

Do you ever wonder what you would do with a sudden financial windfall? As a woman in my twenties I often lay in bed at night budgeting down to the last dollar what I would do with a 100K, a million, five million, etc. Insomnia allows for many trips down fantasy lane late at night when all but my mind is quiet. I don’t remember when or why I started on this particular path, but it was fun. I have not thought about it in long time, until tonight when I saw a movie trailer for a movie in which a woman is offered one million dollars, but if she takes someone else in the world will die. She takes the money, but it made me wonder how many of us would do the same.

Is their a dollar amount on life, and if there is how close to you is too close for it to be worthwhile? I doubt that if someone offered a person money and said that in exchange their sibling, parent, partner, etc. would die they would take it. If, however, it was only an acquaintance, neighbor, co-worker or complete stranger across the globe does that make it easier? The power of currency is almost too overwhelming. We place such great value on material goods, that somewhere along the way we began to believe that happiness is impossible without money. Cash will create happiness and if someone else gets hurt, then our happiness is worth that risk. Right?

I have often said, that while money may not buy happiness it certainly makes everything else much easier. Knowing the rent will be paid and family fed allows more mental energy to go toward the other necessities of life in the pursuit of happiness. When you’re poor in today’s society everything revolves around that fact and yes that means that very often we aren’t happy. So if we can agree that to some extent it is somewhat impossible to be happy when you are poor and don’t know how you’ll feed your children, I guess the real question should b what value do we place on happiness not on human life. I wouldn’t take any amount of money if I knew someone would die, but if you offered me cash, but said I would never find happiness what would I do?

I’ve never really been happy, at least not for more than short periods of time and with the exception of the last six years, I’ve always been poor. So yes, I think I might choose money over happiness, because that’s not guaranteed in life either and thus far, it’s kind of a foreign concept. There have been periods of happiness in my life and if you could ensure that I would be returned to that state then I might forego the money. Without that guarantee however, I might just take material comfort and the never-ending or fulfilled pursuit of happiness.