Money Can't Buy You Class (and apparently it won't make you happy either)

Let's not bullshit each other. You see those ads on the side of the screen? And at the top? And at the bottom? Go look at one of them. Someone just made $800, baby (well hopefully I will one day if this shitter of a blog ever gets more followers). Seriously, they're set up to detect the position of your eyeballs. Maybe some of you will actually click them enough to where i'll make enough to fill my SnoCone machine with Cristal.

Most of us get out of bed everyday purely because it edges us one step closer to some kind of financial future we want. If we won the lottery, most of us would show up to the office the next day wearing an ankle-length fur coat and enough bling to make Mr. T look Amish, and only stay just long enough to take a dump on our boss's desk plant.

So What's the Problem?

Hey, remember when you had that horrible dream that you were stuck in Nigeria? Well according to surveys, Nigerians are happier with their lives than the people of any other country (duh, they don't know any better).

Can your country fit three to a motorcycle? Didn't think so.

The USA ranked 16th in happiness.

Hey, did I mention that the average Nigerian makes $300 a year? That's less than a hundredth of what the average American makes. America being the country that hands out 120 million prescriptions for anti-depressants every year.

China is turning into a great object lesson in this, as their economy explodes and incomes skyrocket, but levels of happiness and personal satisfaction are dropping at the same rapid rate.

There's a couple of reasons for it. First, your brain adjusts feelings of happiness downward after you've reached some goal or other. It regulates the good feelings, presumably so that you have motivation to reach the next goal instead of just lounging by the pool for the rest of your days.

The second one is that as social creatures, we compare ourselves to our neighbors. This is why executives can cry about the $500,000 salary cap that comes with taking government bailout money. Their friends are making $3 million a year and live in igloos made out of cocaine. We can laugh at their complaints, but of course then you're giving the Nigerian permission to laugh at yours. That guy made 100 times more than you, you make 100 times more than the Nigerian.

Once you start hanging around the other high earners, you'll want all the stuff they have. No, that's not right--you'll want the stuff that's so much better than their stuff that they'll vomit with envy. 

"Yeah, same model as yours. Only covered in solid fucking gold."

But what about sudden wealth, like if you won the lottery, or sold your novel for $10 million? That'd be cool, right, because you'd still remember your former life and appreciate your new riches! Well, just ask that one guy, who wound up broken and bankrupt after he won $16 million in the lottery. It turns out that while he knew how to handle the stress of being poor thanks to a lifetime of experience, he had no concept of how to handle the new and alien stresses of wealth. Sucks- I need to stop watching those "How the Lottery Changed My Life" specials.

Wait, it Gets Worse...

You know the whole Invasion of the Body Snatchers phenomenon with famous people, where suddenly all of your friends turn into leeches? Same here, only worse. With your newfound riches, suddenly "friends" pop up from all over. Cousins who you've never met, forgotten classmates from school, men/women who'd never even look your way before, all suddenly in your orbit, complimenting you, doing you favors. Then they casually slip it into conversation that they're going to have to default on their mortgage unless somebody helps out.

Your very own entourage!

Suddenly every relationship is in doubt. Do they actually care about you? Or do they just want a seat on the Bling Train? Would they sell you out to get to your cash?

That lottery winner I mentioned above . . . somebody hired a hitman to take him out, to get to his money. That somebody was his own fucking brother.

So What Have I Learned?

I've learned that I still got fucked with my raise this year, and I better get a salary increase soon. I've also realized that I wish there was a gas station closer to my place so I could walk to buy lotto tickets.

P.S. I've never trusted my brother anyways.