As an investor I spend a lot of time thinking about money, and I've found that my my ideas about the topic have shifted over time. Money, in my opinion, isn't the key to happiness. However, being overwhelmed by it (or the lack of it, as the case may be) can very well be a key to
unhappiness.
In terms of importance you can compare money to oxygen: having lots and lots of it won’t necessarily make you happy, but when you don’t have enough it’s hard to think about anything else.
The concept of hedonism, in modern usage, is often associated with vice and amoral excess. Even the term Epicurean has this connotation, even though Epicurus, the thinker for whom the term is named envisioned pleasure primarily as the absence of suffering. So actually the idea of hedonism originally had an air of responsiblity to it. Meaning: indulgent times today leads to less fun things tomorrow – be it lots of credit card debt, a root canal, an unwanted pregnancy, acid indigestion, or that extra twenty pounds that’s magically materialized.
Two things brought these thoughts to mind today. First, I’m reading Milan Kundera’s excellent novel Slowness, which discusses the topic. And second: I just ran across an excellent photo essay about money at SavingAdvice.com. I found it insightful and funny.
Related links:
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