The reason money can’t buy happiness is because happiness is an emotion, and emotions change the world you see. Allow me to explain.

Hunger, rage, sexual arousal, all can change your hierarchy of priorities in an instant. It’s all a mind game, and emotions can shape the playing field.

Emotions are non-tangible. They can’t be turned away from as easily as physical objects. They are with you wherever you go, wherever you look. As long as you have the conscious awareness to experience them, they’re there.

The reason money can’t buy happiness is because happiness is an emotion, and emotions are things money can’t touch.

What money can do, is buy physical objects that distract from emotion.

This is the perfect illustration.

The reason people feel money can solve their problems and gives them happiness, is because the money they accumulate early on is spent on novel objects that keep them distracted. These objects are often physical manifestations of fantasies they’ve built. But through the test of time, the novelty will wear off and they’ll be left with the emotions that haven’t been processed for years.

It is those people who then preach that money can’t buy happiness, as the newcomers to wealth chuckle at the silly idea and think the experienced person is full of it because the novelty has done fine keeping their emotions at bay.

The evolution will happen sooner or later for them… Or not, because nowadays there’s so much novelty that they can remain distracted for a lifetime. But if they live long enough, it’ll surely happen. At which point, the cycle continues.

The experience of one person’s life can’t be so easily transferred to a new human being. That new human will be subject to the same emotional fallacies and temptations. This is where the power of communication and proper parenting/mentoring comes in. We… YOU have the power to communicate your experience clearly and effectively enough to guide the steps of a young one to “trip over the truth” in a safe and non-destructive manner to gain the insight for themselves and be provided clear language to conceptualize their experience. This is everyone’s responsibility for those you care about in your life. Words alone can’t get the point across, they must experience it for themselves, but the words can help them make sense of it.

The reason intellectuals or highly self-aware people tend to intuitively understand that money doesn’t buy happiness or at least have this realization younger, is because they’re more in touch with their emotions. It takes far greater and persistent distraction to numb the sensations.

Those who tend to go the longest blinded by physical possessions are those with the shortest attention spans and are also usually extroverted and haven’t spent much time introspecting.

The above article contains tools that may help you judge character and make sense of the seemingly senseless aspects of life.

It’s all understandable, sometimes you just need a heart break to gain the perspective necessary.

Pain is a looking glass with a very unique and powerful vantage point.
Explore it instead of running away from it. This is how the wise gain wisdom. The many distractions nowadays is why wisdom is becoming a rare trait.

Know thyself. Soul search. Explore.
And most importantly, give yourself permission to feel what’s there and forgive yourself for the knee-jerk response society has conditioned you with to feel shameful or weak at having the emotion in the first place.