What is wrong in seeking happiness from wealth?

We might imagine that achieving sudden fame or sudden wealth would satisfy all our desires, but more often than not the satisfaction provided by such achievements is short-lived and does nothing to improve our well-being. I met a famous Taiwanese singer who, having described her discomfort and disenchantment with fame and fortune, burst into tears, crying: “I wish I’d never become famous!” Studies have shown that an unexpected situation — winning the lottery jackpot, for instance — can lead to a temporary heightening of one’s pleasure quotient but has little long-term effect on the happy or unhappy disposition of the subjects involved. In the case of lottery winners, it has been found that most experience a period of elation following their stroke of good luck but a year later have returned to their normal satisfaction level. Sometimes, too, the event, which was presumably enviable, destabilizes the life of the “happy winner.” The late psychologist Michael Argyle cites the case of a twenty-four-year-old Englishwoman who had won a jackpot of more than one million pounds sterling. She quit her job and was soon consigned to boredom; she bought a new house in a fashionable neighborhood and found herself cut off from her friends; she bought a fancy car, although she didn’t know how to drive; she bought mountains of clothing, most of which never left the closet; she went to fine restaurants but preferred to eat fish and chips. Within a year she began to suffer from depression, her life empty and without satisfaction.

We all know how very clever and tireless our consumer society is at inventing countless bogus pleasures, laboriously hyped stimulants designed to keep us in a state of emotional tension capable of triggering a kind of mental anesthesia. A Tibetan friend of mine who was contemplating the flashy advertising billboards in New York commented: “They are trying to steal our minds.” There is a distinct difference between true joy, which is the natural manifestation of well-being, and euphoria, the elation caused by passing excitation. Any superficial thrill that is not anchored in enduring contentment is almost invariably followed by disappointment.

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