…or wealth? I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. A couple of days ago I was reading an article about happiness that asked if you had to choose, what would it be, happiness or wealth? At first I leaned to wealth, because, hey, I’ve been happy once or twice before, but I’ve never been wealthy, but then I used one of my favorite professor’s tricks: define happiness, and then, define wealth.

Does happiness include contentment? Or perhaps, satisfaction? What is contentment and satisfaction, is it more important than all of the material things we think we want? But what about the non-material things we want? Can they be bought? Are our desires twined with our discontent?

Does wealth include stability? Emotional health/wealth? Sure, money doesn’t buy happiness, and, as recent conversations have pointed out, lottery winners are no more emotionally content after winning the lottery than they were before, they just have more money, but, can money buy the time needed to understand our discontent? Or does money only buy more discontent?

Maybe this all falls under Aristotle’s notion of being and becoming. Does wealth infer a stasis? And, as such, does it then impede our reason for becoming; do we exist only by being? Some days, I’d like enough wealth to see for myself. Or not.