For some unknown reason, I have seen many articles and blogs lately regarding money.  Maybe its my subconscious, I don’t know.  Here are a couple of things that I have learned over the years.

First of all, money does buy happiness, to some degree.  If you are not a happy person, then chances are whether you have money or not will not matter.  I used to tell people who only rich people said that money cannot buy happiness and to some degree that is true because when you have money you can buy a jet ski.   Have you ever seen anyone unhappy on a jet ski.  I didn’t think so.  Unless you just ran out of gas. 

Don’t get me wrong, there are people who win the lottery everyday and they are miserable and then they eventually go broke.  Why?  Because they thought money would bring them happiness.  It doesn’t work that way.  Money only buys you the opportunity to be happy, it is up to you to make it happen.

Now for the elephant in the room, making more money in your job.  A pay increase can only go so far to making you happy especially when the environment is toxic.  However, I have found that the opposite is also true.  When the market continues to move upward and your pay remains stagnant, it is only a matter of time before you will feel undervalued.  There are people who stay for other reasons, obviously, but there will be a value to other intangibles and once that threshold is met, most people will leave for greener pastures. 

I would think that if a company was unwilling to pay you the market value for your services, then you probably will not be happy in general for an extended period of time.  I also understand that with some companies, there is no amount of money that will make you happy because there are too many other problems to compensate for the increase in pay.  What do you think?