Bridie+Oral

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Money doesn’t buy happiness A GHD hair straightener: $259 An Xbox 360: $499 A trip to Fiji for seven days: $1998 Having fun with your friends and family: Priceless

Think about this, imagine you had all the money in the world, you’re a millionaire, wait no make that a billionaire. You could buy anything you have ever wanted, a flying car, a nightclub, a 60 million dollar house, but you don’t have a single friend in the world. These things you buy can make you happy for a while, but wouldn’t you rather have friends who you can tell every one of your secrets to, who you can have hours of endless fun with, who you can be yourself around and they will still love you? I would prefer to have that kind of happiness.

Your true friends will always be there for you. When you meet someone new, you don’t ask “How much money do you have?” before you become their friend. True friends will like you even if you don’t have the flashest house or the flashest car. They don’t care whether your clothes are Gucci or from the Warehouse. When you’re having a bad day, when your fake tan has turned orange and when you’ve broken a nail, true friends will still be there for you and love you as if you were their brother or sister. Friends will always make you happy and that’s something you can’t buy.

What about Lotto winners? Sure, paying $5.00 and winning $1 million dollars would be sweet, but there comes all the hassles of people trying to steal your money, people sending you letters begging for money and how to spend your money wisely. You would gain a lot of friends but only because they want your money. Studies have been done on lotto winners and generally it shows within 12 months you are back to your usual happiness and your recent increase of money hasn’t made you any happier in the long run. Take the recent winners of Big Wednesday. They won 36 million dollars between four of them! 3 News spoke with one of the winners and asked how it had changed their life and if they were any happier. She replied no we are neither less happy nor happier. So this shows winning 36 million dollars doesn’t even make you happier.

Surveys taken this year, show that Wellington is the unhappiest city in New Zealand and Oamaru and Timaru are the happiest towns. They also found out that right-handed people are happier than left-handed people. Patrick McCarthy, a hypnotist who helps pessimists, says that optimism comes from childhood. You learn to be an optimist or pessimist before you turn five and you copy your parents.

Sure buying the latest play station or the flashest phone can make you happy for a couple of weeks months or years, but soon your play station or phone isn’t going to be the flashest one or the best looking one, but your friends will still be there for you. They won’t care if you’re rich or poor. Your friends will give you some of the best times in your life, the best memories and the best photos. This is why I believe money can buy you happiness but it’s not going to last as long as a friendship of laughter, happiness and tears. “Happiness is a state of mind.”