This generation, more than any of its predecessors, praises the all mighty dollar. Millions sit around fantasizing about wealth because now, with the advent of technology, it’s constantly in your face, on television, on a billboard, on social media, an ad on your favorite website, that guy in your DM telling you that he can flip your $500.00 into $5000.00, it’s incessant and relentless.

Wealth used to be handed down by royal families but now it can be achieved with the right invention, the right knowledge, the right investors etc. It’s that possibility of riches that lingers in the forefront of every strugglers mind and lingers even closer to those who have already achieved wealth, for now at this point they know no other way of living and aren’t willing to risk it all for happenstance choices but by intelligent design.

In this generation being broke is a choice and I’m not speaking financially but mentally and spiritually. When your mind is together a lot of other goodness falls into place. If you’re rich in your bank account but poor in your mental health, you’re not winning, trust me.

If money makes you feel better about yourself, that’s awesome, but don’t allow it to falsify your happiness.

You can have $1,000,000 or $1.00 in your bank account and still be jovial. However, I am a realist so I’m not going to lie and say that having more money can’t create more moments of happiness, but it won’t make you internally happy. In my mind, money helps alleviate financial worries. You don’t have to stress about paying your rent or feeding your kids or buying school supplies, but it won’t bring you internal joy if you’re internally emotionally corrupt. People think that real joy lives in a faultless society plagued by little fairies bestowing gifts and wishes upon you of all your deepest desires but truth is no such place exists but you can create your own earthly bliss but not through materialisms.

The problems with materialism are the following:

• It’s momentary.
• You can’t take it with you when you die (but you can leave it behind for those you care about so it’s like a problem and a solution, moving on.)
• It creates a, sometimes, false sense of superiority.
• It can become obsessive.
• It can destroy families.
• It doesn’t involve love, directly.
• It masks your perception of the “little things in life.”

That’s just a few of the issues with materialism and the idolization thereof will deteriorate your ability to be happy just within self, not self in Hawaii, or self in a BMW but just self sitting in bed reading a book or watching your favorite movie.

Happiness is like a mountain that you strive to get to the top of and if your intentions are not pure the mountain will keep growing and you will believe you reached the peak but when you look up you realize that you still have another mile to climb. Many of you are still climbing because you haven’t embraced happiness at its most prehistoric definition of simple joy. Wake up happy because somebody else didn’t. Smile at that co-worker you know hates you because you don’t have to gift everybody the same energy they give you. Now I’m not saying be overly jovial and fake. If you’re the nonchalant happy – be that. If you’re the perky happy – be that. If you’re the passive happy – be that. Just be you and don’t force anything.

Be happy in your raw form because materialism’s will come and go but your stuck with you for life.