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Can people be poor and happy?

DallasApple

DallasApple

Depends Upon My Mood..
MysticSang'ha said:
We're middle class, and we're happy.

We were poor right after Steve and I married. But overall we were pretty happy.

My first marriage was spent not quite dirt poor, but pretty darn close. One car, rented house at $400 a month, made our family of four meals on around $140 a month (and with fruits and veggies) and we didn't starve. We could have been happy if the marriage wasn't so disasterous.

Before that, I was dirt poor. Dancers can work six weeks on a show with unpaid rehearsals, do a one weekend production run, be contracted to get a percentage cut of the box office receipts, and get a paycheck of $156. I would rehearse from 7am to 1pm and then work two part time jobs as a head instructor most evenings from 3pm to 10pm and as a waitress on the weekends. I still couldn't pay my car insurance and maintenance, gas, rent, food all at once (some bills just had to be compromised) and a looming college loan hanging over my head, and as you could see, I was working ALL THE TIME.

I was happy. I only had a bag of tootsie rolls to eat for three days one time, but overall I was happy. I was living - and still living - according to my ideals and my priorities. What else could I ask for? :shrug:
Click to expand...

Toostie rolls are "vitamins"//

Love


Dallas
 
Klaufi_Wodensson

Klaufi_Wodensson

Vinlandic Warrior
I think I'd be perfectly happy living back in Ancient Europe, living off the land and all that kind of stuff, without the need of money.
 
Penumbra

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Generally, a certain basic amount of money is required as a base to allow happiness to have a reasonable shot, but anything above that doesn't add much. Or if not money, at least lucky surroundings that support them anyway.

I don't think it would be very easy to be happy if one is currently starving to death while surrounded by violence and has buried some of their children that died of malaria or murder or whatever else.

I was homeless for a while as a child, but I wasn't particularly miserable because I was homeless in a developed country. I had plenty of food and shelter, and since I was a child, I didn't have to deal with the more subtle saddening effects of poverty like a feeling of failure or helplessness that my parent felt about our situation.

Money can help with happiness because it can help free oneself from a job they don't like or from crushing debt or from a constant feeling of helplessness. Some poor single parents have to work like 16 hours a day on minimum wage to support their children.

-Lyn
 
methylatedghosts

methylatedghosts

Can't brain. Has dumb.
Well for the past few years, I've been living on about $180 NZD per week. This pays rent ($75), dinner and bills ($70-ish) with a little left to myself which included lunches and breakfasts, and the occasional taxi home when I was tired and wet. But I have been happy. I've been living with very good friends and none of us have any real money to speak of. We live week-to-week. We make it fun and exciting just by hanging out, being poor together. Nowadays I'm spending a little more, but I'm getting $400+ per week, some going to debts, a little more on better food, the rest I'm trying to save. I don't think my level of happiness has changed much at all in comparison to having less than half the amount of money. I don't have a car - I walk everywhere I need to be.

Next year, I'm likely going back down to under $200pw. And I'm a little excited - there's no adventure quite like not knowing if you're going to be able to pay everything that you need to pay every week ^_^
 
EtuMalku

EtuMalku

Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
Money . . . enough to be comfortable.
Money = Material = Objective Universe = Physical Life

Nothing to do with being rich Spiritually

EM
 
Skwim

Skwim

Veteran Member
As for the OP question; can poor people be happy? I would say only if they deliberately seek to be poor or are sufficiently retarded so as to not recognize what they're missing by being less poor.
 
Nerthus

Nerthus

Wanderlust
I spent a few months travelling around Asia with friends, we had little money, stayed in some pretty dim places, but it was one of the happiest times. I love being outside and am different ideas of comfort than most others :D

If I had to live like that every day here, I think my happiness would depend on the people I have around me. I don't need designer clothes, or five cars, as long as I have my friends and can survive I think I would be happy.
 
Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout

Misanthropic Humanist
If you can be happy being poor, you can be even more happy with money. If you can't be happy with money, you probably can't be happy at all.
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Money brings joys AND sorrows with it - which aren't necessarily part of the equation when you don't have any money.
 
ChristineES

ChristineES

Tiggerism
Premium Member
Some people are happy because they are happy with what they've got and not preoccupied with they don't have.
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Yep - Happiness is not having what you want - but wanting what you have.
 
joea

joea

Oshoyoi
MissAlice,
People can be happy while they are poor, because there is a difference between pleasure and happiness. pleasure is derived from some cause like a beautiful car, a house etc. But happiness is a state of joy without any cause, it simply flows from within yourself...when you simply reside as yourself.
This is why Buddha says, the more you desire, the more misery becomes. The desire is never fulfilled. Stop "becoming" to be something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHVpBEs3Ag8

watch

watch
 
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Peacewise

Peacewise

Active Member
Seems to me that the more people have the more afraid they are of losing it, that fear creates stress and leads towards unhappiness.
 
Nerthus

Nerthus

Wanderlust
Peacewise said:
Seems to me that the more people have the more afraid they are of losing it, that fear creates stress and leads towards unhappiness.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. But, if one as very little they will worry constantly about having enough to get by.

I think you should be able to separate happiness from money - some of the happiest days I have had, have been free or cost very little money. I don't you need millions to be able to have a happy time. Although if you grow up with one extreme or the other, then it might be harder to see it.
 
Peacewise

Peacewise

Active Member
What is very little? Do we consider "poor" to be so poor that one wonders where the next meal comes from? Or do we consider "poor" to be unable to buy new clothes every month? Where is the line?
I think that once one's education, medical, shelter and nutritional needs are met then one is no longer poor, yet it seems that some would up the ante on this and make a lack of university education poor, a lack of a 4 bedroom house poor, an inability to eat macdonalds every night poor.
I know people who earn less than the australian average weekly wage and have done so for over a decade and live healthy and happy lives, yet on the other hand I know people who earn triple the average aussie wage and are filled with anger.

Perhaps the Bible was accurate with the concept.
Matthew 19:24.
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
and replace "kingdom of God" with happiness - which seems consistent with Christian thinking.
 
Father Heathen

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
I think true happiness comes from fulfillment, which cannot be achieved through mere wealth and materialism alone. I would rather have my friends and family and be dirt poor than have all the money in the world but alone.
 
GrsshppR

GrsshppR

Uber Boy
IMHO
You can only be happy if your poor. Look at the rich and those who have it all (ie: Tom Brady, Eminem..etc) empty and still searching for more.
The third world nations I have been to have NOTHING and yet are always smiling, sharing what little they have, content with family...etc
Obviously this is a huge Generalization but you get the idea.


GrsshppR
 
Walkntune

Walkntune

Well-Known Member
I'll give you an example. I go to a beautiful lake just right across from me. There aren't water falls or parties but I still enjoy the beautiful nature given by the trees, the ducks, the geese and wild birds that lurk about. When I get up, I walk on through an old trail just to appreciate nature in its glory (sounds cheesy I know) yet I can't help but wonder, most of these people who come from such "happy" lives can't see it so to speak. Yet I could never describe "it" to them so to speak. The old torn down cabins, remnants from the past, wild life, trees, wild grass, flowers and whatever else. Why is it that some people can't see the beauty of this and are eager to tear it down?
Click to expand...

Best things in life are free!
 
Midnight Pete

Midnight Pete

Well-Known Member
If it's possible to be rich and miserable, it's possible to be poor and happy.


It's definitely possible to be rich and miserable-- mo' money mo' problems.
 
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