MNN - Mother Nature Network

who are so privileged as to have a choice - more money or more happiness - the more money option seems to me to be somehow deceptive. The sentence that sums it all up: "You might think of happiness as the ultimate goal that people pursue, but actually, people think of goals like health, family happiness, social status and sense of purpose as sometimes competing with happiness," Rees-Jones said. Of these apparently happiness-slaying goals, the only one that money alone can actually provide is social status. Beyond that, the notion that "sense of purpose" actually competes with happiness is confounding. One way to come at this is to turn the whole discussion on its head: consider the value of your life if you were independently wealthy, but had no sense of purpose. You are rich in both money and time. You don't need to choose. You can have it all. But minus any sense of purpose, it is doubtful that you will experience genuine happiness. In some mysterious way, your happiness is compromised for . . . nothing. I think two things are possible. One, you may work long hard hours for low pay and no job security and still experience happiness because you do have a sense of purpose - that purpose being to provide the best that you can for your family. The other possibility is that you may work long hard hours for excellent pay and still have a sense of purpose - that purpose being to provide the best that you can for your family. In either case, you do achieve some happiness because you are meeting the fundamental human needs: food, shelter, clothing, AND sense of purpose. Maybe I'm just trying to say that our view of ourselves may be much less than 20/20 when the dominant social construct admits to only one model of success. If you believe that you can thrive, albeit unhappily, without a sense of purpose, try to imagine living from here on without whatever it is that gets you out of bed, willing to face another day each morning. Your sense of purpose will pop right into focus. Whether or not it is what you want it to be is, I suppose, another question entirely.