Comments for Of money and true happiness at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 7 out of 7 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 15:35:22 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4848 Money or values? That is the question. Pete, Lawyers look at money first - not being psychologists - and they see what they look at. All social indicators are bad for "downscale" Americans. It would be foolish to extend the appearance of marital success to spiritual well-being. Certainly they are related, but drop in on any 12 step program to see what is going on behind the expensive doors on Wisteria Lane. Happiness would have to be defined more clearly to support your point. If happiness is comfort, then yes. Money makes for comfort - of all kinds. If by happiness, you mean spiritual success, ah ... you've got a problem of degree. There are no McMansions in the New Testament. - Other Joe Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:42:50 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4845 Except that there's one thing you're forgetting. THe success of marriage and family life and by extension the spiritual well-being of the family members is pretty strongly correlated with economic success. The divorce rates for downscale Americans are staggering and any divorce lawyer will tell you that money is the leading cause of marital breakdown. So I think happiness is more tied to economic well being than many would like to think. - Pete brown Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:01:19 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4842 Jason, As a cook, i can assure you that not all recipes turn out. - Austin Ruse Thu, 09 Sep 2010 10:24:25 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4841 "Put a small American family into a great big house where all the family members ramble around on their own, in their own rooms, using their own entertainment systems, practically living private lives, and what you have is a recipe for familial disaster. " That may be often true and even generally true, but is not universally true. My family has been like that for ages and it is a very close family. - jason taylor Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:33:37 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4840 I once lived on a block with about a dozen houses in a Catholic working-house neighborhood. At one point in the sixties, somebody added it up and 96 children lived in those houses. To my knowledge, not a single house had a third regular bedroom. The kids slept wherever they could find a burrow. Even though every father worked a trade (pipefitters, tool-and-die men, plumbers, etc.), not one of the mothers worked outside the home, although some laundered and cleaned and cooked for neighbors. Just recently, a colleague of mine, a school administrator and teacher, found out she was pregnant with their third child. They immediately decided that each child would need its own bedroom, even if the third baby turned out to be their third daughter. A four-bedroom house will require both parents to continue to work at very demanding jobs. That separation of work from family life is also part of the recipe for family disaster, although I know these people, who are strong traditionalist Jews, will make somehow make it work. That was then, this is now. - Ken Colston Thu, 09 Sep 2010 06:36:43 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4838 If money "bought" happiness, Hollywood and the Hamptons and (etc.) would be utopias and nothing could be more removed from the actual. Money does one thing well and that is that it can purchase distraction and deference. Both are impediments to self-knowledge. Why apologize to the neighbor that you wronged when A. you can afford not to and B. you can just go shopping in Paris instead? Why indeed? Why stay married to the woman (or man) with faults that can no longer be easily hidden when there are hundreds of willing partners available with intact masks? One reading of the New Testament Eye of the Needle metaphor is that it evokes a narrow gate in the city that camels were made to pass through. Before they could do so, all of the goods on their backs had to be removed. And so it is with the Kingdom of God. I don't think there can be happiness without truth, acceptance and love. Distraction is something else entirely. - Other Joe Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:06:45 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/of-money-and-true-happiness.html#comment-4837 I once heard a man being interviewed about a book he wrote (can't remember names) and he said he wanted his son to grow up to be a better person than he was. The author was not a criminal or anything. . . just a regular guy. Perhaps that is a worthier goal than wanting your child to accumulate more "stuff." - Linda Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:29:23 +0100