@John: if you consider it “trite” to think about and write about what’s really important to one’s happiness … I must say I’m wonder what you would say is worth a post? The only think I can think of is … nothing?

@Johanna, not that these types of “labels” matter but I think in a similar way and I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like you’re a nihilist. I sort of am too. Basically, if you don’t care about the meaning of life: well you must have already decided that it doesn’t matter. Which is basically Nihilism. Now, that’s not very useful in and of itself (even if it is true). So I basically assume that we make our own purpose in life and go from there and so I’m pretty much a Nihilist in secular humanist clothes.

Also, while I do agree that if one has money one is more likely to start thinking that other things are more important: I don’t think that someone who is low income or homeless would do well to neglect all those other things to try to make money. So it’s not like some people seem to be saying. This isn’t a post only “for all those rich white Americans who have all the money and are keeping the rest of us down!”

It seems obvious to me that any God that might exist is not the selfish, petty type who will give you a cookie if you pray to Her in the right language but will set you on fire if you don’t. (Why would such a God create a world of people who have more compassion than She does?) Beyond that, I really don’t see how I would live my life any differently if it had a “higher purpose” than if it didn’t, so the question just isn’t that interesting to me.

Really, I go to work and go to school in the hopes of earning more than $13k a year someday. Out of that money, I’ll be paying back loans for my school experience, but also spending quite a bit on my cars (hoping in a year or two after school to add our fourth) and to *finally* get back to Europe for a proper holiday. Believe me, I value my cars, travel and work/school experiences far more than money, but none can be achieved without money’s aid. I’d just rather use it to make me happy than try to find happiness in the money itself.

I think the bar for appreciating these things is much lower… As long as you aren’t staving, homless or in other imminent danger at least some of the listed items should be more important to you than money. Debt isn’t joyful, but does it really drain your humanity? For example, would you ever consider leaving your spouse just to be debt free?

-Rick Francis

-Rick Francis

Even if their answer to all three is a resounding “no” or “not sure”?

-Little House

Ogden Nash, The Terrible People

And athiests and agnostics would disagree with the last one as well.

I think marriage and spirituality is more personal and not neccesarily for everyone.

The rest of the list is bang on.

On the other hand, people die or suffer through debilitating illnesses because they didn’t have enough money to take care of things before they became life threatening (especially in countries that don’t have decent health care /end soapbox).

What about dental problems? A lack of money to fix a small problem can lead to pain, infection, tooth loss (which can result in a decline in nutrition), or even heart disease (because the infection gets into the bloodstream and damages the heart).

Money isn’t the be all, end all. It’s just important to have enough of it to keep you safe and healthy. After you’ve taken care of that you can focus on things like your passions, hobbies, etc.

And I don’t know if you would agree with this, but in response to comment 7, I think that ‘money is not the most important thing’ has to do with stages in life. Once someone has enough money to be self-sufficient, then day-to-day living is no longer a numbers game and should be about things other than numbers and obtaining money/material items. At the same time, when you don’t have money, you aren’t specifically worried about money itself, but about surviving that day-to-day.

I agree, money may not be _the most_ important thing (I’d put God over money), but geez, when one can’t even support themselves in a meager way; money (and trying to scrape together enough to live on) would probably rate in importance over some of the other things in your list.