Rona's blog regarding happiness and money inspired my thoughts and blog in this theme week.

While I do not believe that there is a direct relationship between money and happiness, I do believe that they are interconnected, perhaps dysfunctionally.  Most of the wealthy people lI have seen lead miserable lives, ieven if they don't acknowledge it.  Yet I also believe that poverty tends to lead to misery, tragedy and unhappiness.

I believe that most people lament the materialistic nature of our society, yet feel like there is nothing they can do about it.  The real question would be, would you honestly change it if you could.

I believe the biggest problem in our society is that we value people and things based upon money.  People in our culture with money feel empowered.  It doesn't matter how they got it, whether they inherited it, stumbled into it or earned it.  If they earned it, it doesn't matter how they earned it, whether they did it honestly or of they accumulated their wealth by screwing over other people.

Don't get me wrong, it is not as bad of a system as we have seen in other civilizations where you are born into a caste or place in society and that's who you are forever.  America's potential for upward mobility is unlimited and spiritually superior to such previous concepts of societal order...I just think we can do better.

In today's America, many of the best and the brightest go into the financial world where they play their part in gaming the system.  They accumulate money, essentially for money's sake, often without even building, inventing or creating anything real, and establish their higher place in society through their wealth.  Ultimately, it is not their fault, it is society's as a whole.  We establish the rules, they just play by them.  We are the ones who give those people value because of their money.  We are the ones who watch the TV shows with the mansions filled with ugly people and drool.  We are the ones who tell the kid in the inner city that he will drive a nicer car and get more attractive women if he sells drugs rather than gets an education and works hard his whole life.  We establish the values, and people respond.

When society as a whole changes what we value, that's when we can better manage the dysfunctional relationship between money and happiness.