Learning English

Does having more money make you happier?

Do you like having money? What do you spend it on? Some people say that having more money makes life much easier, but others say that it can't buy you happiness. What do you think? Here's an article about the possible link between our finances and our feelings.

While you're reading, decide which of these two statements is the best summary:

• Money helps us do a lot of things but it can't make our lives get better forever.
• Money makes our lives get better and better all the time.

Read the text and complete the activity

More money might not mean more happiness

Would you have the kind of reaction you can see in this picture if you were suddenly given a lot of money? It might seem greedy to want all this cash, but for some people there is nothing better than holding a wodge of notes. For them, life with money is much easier. Paying bills, eating in fancy restaurants, buying expensive luxury items – these are all things you can do if you have the money. You don't have to worry about paying the rent every month. Each time you need to replace something in your home, like a washing machine – no problem, you can pay for it. Money does make life easier in some ways.

But money does not always equal happiness in every situation. There are places in the world where people don't have much money, but they are still happy. They make do with what they have and don't need money to buy expensive things. And in the past, money wasn't seen as the key to happiness. For example, parents wouldn’t buy expensive toys for their children. Instead, the children were content to play with things they found, like sticks and stones in the garden.

Today in the developed world however, money might be central to our happiness. Having to pay more and more for things means we place more and more value on each coin and note in our pockets. So, the amount we earn in our jobs becomes crucial to our opinions about happiness. When we earn more, we feel happier. When countries become wealthier, there is usually improvement in education, lower child mortality, and longer life expectancy. The problem with this is that there is only so much of these things that money can buy. Things can't keep on getting better continuously.

And is there a point at which money can make us decidedly unhappy? For example, high-paid jobs often come with a lot of stress. There is only so much pressure you can take before you might need to quit the rat race, however good the pay is. Not to mention that it is very difficult, maybe almost impossible, to define what happiness actually is.

Did you work out which was the best summary?

It was: Money helps us do a lot of things but it can't make our lives get better forever.

To do

Are you happy? Time for a quiz. See if you get all the questions right.

End of Session 3

That's the end of this session. Join us in Session 4 where you'll hear all about the 'stuffocation' of society. Do we have too much stuff?