How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.

fallacy lies in the fact that this quest not only spoils the lives of the misguided creatures who pursue gold as a goal of life, but it poisons the atmosphere for their neighbours who would be satisfied with other, more reasonable sources of significance. The whole tenor of our civilization has been made neurotic by the insane “ gold rush ” of modern life. With the “ gold rush ” come hurry, competition, disinterestedness, narrow horizons, disharmony, and the thousand lamentable dissonances of our age. This statement is not a depreca¬ tion of the true value of money—the socially useful man needs it as a medium of exchange and acquires it in a greater or lesser measure as the compensation for his usefulness to the group. But it is a footnote of warning to those who seek to compensate their sense of inferiority by the possession of money and the power it represents in modern civilization. To anyone who examines analytically the security derived from the possession of money, it becomes apparent that wealth is one of the least secure forms of happiness. For one thing, money is very difficult to keep. For another, it cannot buy health, love, or a sense of satisfac¬ tion in doing a job well. Above all, money has never been a cure for boredom. The pleasures which it does buy are easily exhausted. Finally, the individual who has concentrated his life on the pursuit of money as the symbol of power, has not had the time to develop other compensatory trends without which money becomes a useless possession in the end. As we indicated in our first chapter, human happiness is not a static thing. It does not result from having something, or from being something—it results solely from doing something which fits into the pattern of human compensation, it derives only from the contribution of something of utility to the social organization of mankind. The fallacy of money as a source of happiness may be easily understood when we interpret the quest of money as an attempt to elevate a means into an end. Whether a rich man can enter into Heaven or not is a matter we leave to the theologians to