Money is the anthem of success - not happiness

There's no doubt that money runs this world and I would be foolish not to acknowledge that fact. Money has wound its way into every part of our lives and has even become to define what we believe as true "success". And true success is bounded to the concept of true "happiness" as well, which is where this image of money takes a dangerous turn and becomes a harmful obsession of gaining wealth instead of discovering contentment within ourselves.

The problem is that the adolescence of today is being socialized to believe that the road to happiness is paved with dollar bills. Our capitalist society is flawed in that way. Today kids are taught to judge others not by who they are, but by how many things they own. Although, the things being introduced to society are revolutionary, we need to look at them and question the impact that they have on us as human beings.

I cannot pretend as if all of these same thoughts and opinions about the link between wealth and happiness haven't once been in my mind as well. I've lived a large portion of my life with the belief that if I didn't study hard enough, if I wasn't the best in my class, if I wasn't every teacher's favorite student, and if I didn't strive to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or any other highly payed individual then I would never be truly happy in my lifetime. And I spent every dime that I ever made working, as a waitress, on pointless things that made me happy for the moment, but in the long run only made me yearn for more objects to sustain my state of fabricated contentment.

I spent the past year as an exchange student in Lloret de Mar, Spain, a small town about an hour North of Barcelona and among the many things I learned during my eye-opening adventure, I learned that this happiness that I was always looking for in things apart from myself was truly inside of me my entire life. For the first time in my life I was forced to live with without the people that I had come to love and depend on and the personal belongings that I thought defined me. I learned probably the most valuable lesson in my life and that was that I was in control of my happiness and I was the only thing that was standing between that happiness that I so longed for. I saw that all of the objects in my life, though important in some ways did not hold as much weight as I had always believed. And so I want to reach out to all of you and share this valuable lesson. Do what you really love in life and make yourself happy because although money and objects may seem as though they bring these things, the effect is only momentary. So be yourself and join me on the path to true happiness.