The Pursuit of Money and Happiness

All these material things only bring more comfort in life, which is not the biggest reason for us to live.

Over the past two decades, numerous social and psychological studies have shown no real relationship between the amount of money earned and the level of satisfaction obtained. People feel devastated when they spend so much time and energy accumulating money, but that feeling of pleasure is exhausting and dissipates very quickly. Gradually, people no longer trust and define feelings of material satisfaction as happiness. People have consciously realized that money not only does not buy happiness, but can also destroy happiness.

Indeed. Since we are eager to develop our industry to produce more and more high-end products for our increased enjoyment, it is also time that we lose the sovereignty of life. Time for work overwhelms time for the most basic human activities. Although there are full amenities, we cannot enjoy it. We are always busy with work, with customers. We don't have time to take care of our health, we don't have the opportunity to talk to people, we don't have the opportunity to learn more life experiences, we can't arrange warm family meals, we can't listen and understand our loved ones living next door. Worst of all, greed grows constantly and a series of moral qualities erode from it.

We find ourselves gradually turning into inanimate machines, no longer subtly feeling the expressions in emotions, in our minds and the mysterious values of life. Yet we always believe that we are building a very stable and bright future. How can we grasp the future if even what's happening in the present we don't grasp? Many times when people ask us if we found this past autumn beautiful, we are as dumbfounded as strangers from nowhere: "Oh, autumn has arrived, I am too busy to know anything." But then we don't bother to pay attention or regret it, because to us these are luxurious, non-economic concerns. It seems that now whatever we do is very carefully calculated, to see if it brings any benefit.

Sometimes we think that it is worth sacrificing our lives to make our children and grandchildren happy. But the baggage of a young person's life doesn't have to be a lofty bank account number. What children need most of all is attention, understanding and sharing with their concerns and dreams about life. Children need a happy family to lean on and learn. The property left by parents is not necessarily a good condition. It easily breeds a mentality of restraint, laziness of striving and easy plunge into enjoyment. After all, parents sacrifice for their children, but children reproach their parents. They suspect that this way of accumulating money is really because of them or because of their parents' irresistible desire to get rich. These young people will surely be very lost when they come into life, because they do not know where to go and do not know where to believe.

Perhaps the concept of "pole before pleasure after" is still deeply imprinted in the minds of many people. But let's try to ask people of retirement age if they really enjoy leisure, or are they living in lost loneliness? What they need is to be understood and loved, but it is their dictatorship and habit of mistrust as a result of fierce economic disputes that have pushed them out of the arms of their lost loved ones. Material adequacy sometimes means nothing to them anymore, even they are bored and want to leave. Their greatest desire now is to return to their youth to live joyfully, beautifully and beautifully. The beauty and beauty that they have left unfinished is love, brotherhood, something meaningful for life.

Pragmatism was formed around the middle of the 19th century and flourished in the 20th century, most prominently in America. It emphasizes experience and efficiency, in which all human actions are for the purpose of seeking profit. Because it satisfies the immense demand for human enjoyment, it quickly received the enthusiastic support of all classes. It transcends materialism and idealism, rejecting the fundamental questions of philosophy or religion that were posed centuries ago. From that foundation, one can clearly delineate between economic and non-economic.

What can bring profit is called economic, while what does not bring profit or loss is uneconomic. For example, in a meeting with friends that extracts a lot of useful information, or at least has more good relationships that can support the business, people call the meeting worthy, realistic. Spending hours just listening to tragic stories, or recalling old memories, or simply drinking tea to see the scenery is a waste and unrealistic for them. Unrealistic i.e. uneconomic. People now use the word "practical" to refer to economics. The impractical person is the one who is not economically minded.

Economists must always be conscious of excluding emotional problems. There is no yield or sympathy while doing business. All must follow clear principles. But who does economics, man or machine? If we are human beings, we must be fostered in health, we must rest, we must be cared for, we must be understood and loved. Let's not assume it's uneconomic. Because without it we can't do economics, and nothing is an economy. But human instinct always protects the selfish ego, so people would rather sacrifice emotionally than economically. Because we work in economics, we can pocket our own, and love must be shared. So many broken love affairs, fraternities, wars between ethnicities also because of the overwhelming influence of economics in human perception.

Therefore, economic growth is synonymous with human suffering. It is known that without economics affection is difficult to sustain, but people forget that without affection economics also becomes meaningless. What's the point of getting rich when you can't live joyfully, peacefully, happily and open your heart to others?

The most vicious thing of people in this age is that they do not define what is the means and what is the purpose of life. All these material things only bring more comfort in life, which is not the biggest reason for us to live. We live because we are a spiritual being, a mysterious reality, so we need to develop our true nature of being relaxed, peaceful, and happy. Any of our actions, whether loving or economic, must reflect that noble purpose. It cannot be said that we are still busy making means, so that in five or ten years we will have our purpose. Now that we're stuck in the vehicle, so listlessly controlled by the medium, how can we be sure we'll use it to achieve our goals? With such an attitude to life, it is very likely that we will collapse and die on the very vehicle.

Bhutan is one of the poorest countries in the world. But they always have a smile on their face and always feel happy with their current life. People here are aware that a developed country does not mean sacrificing the environment or community happiness. Therefore, they set GNH (Gross National Happiness) criteria to be able to reach the purpose of life in reality, without going through the illusory and dangerous path of high material. Thanks to "like no other", their lives are very secure, the level of crime or divorce is very low, and above all, they enjoy the value of life day by day, so their life expectancy is very high.

This way of building happiness is increasingly attracting the attention of many developed countries. They began to listen to people's deep desires and decided to reduce GDP (Gross Domestic Product), so that people could reduce their working hours and have the opportunity to return to basic life activities. In the UK, some 81% of people think the government should focus on making people happier rather than wealthy. They demanded a ban on advertising aimed at children to curb materialistic fetishistic tendencies. Japan, on the other hand, is alarmed when it looks back at crime levels and working hours that haven't fallen since the '80s, even though its economy ranks second in the world. Senior leaders have looked at Bhutan's "know enough" living example, so they have boldly planned many "do less, play more" projects to keep GDP in line with GNH. This means that economics must be associated with happiness.

The issue of "national happiness" has also attracted the attention of many sectors of society, from economists, philosophers, psychiatrists, biologists and even spiritualists. But reality shows that building GNH is a hundred thousand times more difficult than GDP. Because man first needs to have a proper sense of the value of happiness, and then it takes a long time to tame his instinct for too much enjoyment to be able to dismiss the means of attraction. Changing habits to reduce good emotions is a huge challenge. But if the whole society works together, that difficulty will gradually be accepted and resolved.

Vietnam is also giving every priority to economic development and is determined to take it to the top. But if we are aware of the primary value of happiness, there is still time to avoid the fallout of the countries that came before us. Even if we have to make material sacrifices, we are always a country that is not rich, we gladly accept. We definitely can't live without affection and happiness. Following the example of other countries, we cannot "catch fish with two hands". So from now on we must immediately eliminate pragmatism and put our energy back to rebuilding the civilized way of life. Only that way of life can help us always find ourselves, filter out our disturbing emotions and nurture the good seeds of our souls. In that space, people are always aware that everything is always present in one thing, so individualism is replaced by immense love. That is the highest happiness of man.

Waiting for a policy to be enacted for everyone to do together will be a long time. Most people still do not believe that living less materialistically is possible to be happy, and many people still believe that people must reach material heights in order to return to spiritual values. But the reality is that "the rich cry too", and few people want to give up the high-end way of enjoyment. Once human greed

Once expanded, it is difficult to retract. And then we don't have the soul to feel and preserve the values of happiness. The land of our minds is already arid and hardened by the so-called material needs.

Let's look back at the picture of happiness that Nguyen Du has painted for us: "An early noon house/ The cool moon breeze on the face of pickles and vegetarian melons/ The four immense surfaces / The tide rises early in the clouds before and after" (Tale of Kieu). Practicing the life of knowing enough is the only chance we have to return to inherit the great possessions that heaven and earth have given us. These possessions are enough to make a meaningful life of a human life. A very short human life. No one knows how long they will live, so please don't neglect it to pursue material things. Tomorrow if we have to leave without having time to live deeply for a human life, isn't that a great regret?

Where
did I forget happiness yesterday?
And here in the pale
Sobbing, Sad Dream.

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