Another millionaire dead. Does money equal happiness?

He is not the first one. Actually, I can't think of any celebrity at the moment who died from natural causes. All our childhood idols have either commited suicide or died from overdosing on alcohol and drugs or coming and going in rehab or they are addicts. Others in jail for gambling, debts, crime, violence, bankrupting. Creepy isn't it? There used to be a strong correlation between depression and living in poverty and social isolation. Depression was associated with lower socioeconomic status, substance abuse, chronic unemployment and lower social rank. Actually, your brain might shrink from malnutrition after years of living in poverty, violence and distress. Now, there seems to be a similar correlation between being wealthy and suffering from mental health issues and being chronically addicted to alcohol and all sorts of drugs.

I am right now almost unemployed in the sense that I do not have a financially stable job and I work only part-time jobs here and there. My main concern is to make ends meet and sometimes I can barely spend more than 8 dollars per day. And I am 33 and still living in my parents home. I can't afford a better lifestyle right now but I am looking for something better and I do want to travel more, spend more time outdoors and see new places and people. I do hope that things will become better at some point and this hope keeps me going even though sometimes I am repeating the same meaningless ritual every day with nothing really interesting happening. But I do have a roof over my head and some food on my table. Well, that makes me lucky among thousands of starving and homeless people. I have food and shelter. The basics. That puts me above a great percentage of poor people on this planet. Now a lot of 'problems' can emerge once your basic needs are met, once your stomach is full. This is where you begin wanting even more and more, according to the Hierarchy of Needs if you can recall Maslow.

Then I hear the 'first world problems' on social media where day by day you get to hear about a celebrity passing-out or overdosing from drugs and alcohol or hunging himself due to financial debts and the first thing which pops-up in my head is what the hell is wrong with people? With all the money in the world? Having whatever they want, any time they want it? You even become bitter and cynical because it seems so odd, absurd and disgracing. Rude. As if this is rude and dishonest to the poor people of the planet. I mean what poor people should do?

And I hear someone complaining: I can't even afford to eat proper food or take a day off for some proper 8 hour sleep and I can't even take care of my self as I would like to, my personal hygiene, my dental health, my medical check-ups, my medical bills. I can't even send my kids to a proper school for some proper education, I come home exhuasted, need to pick the kids from school, shop, cook, feed them, then do all the cleaning, do the laundry, help the kids with their homework, put them to bed, and then maybe catch a few hours of sleep if I am lucky. This is the daily ritual for the average Joe.

I then try to imagine my self having more money than I could spend. I picture my self bying and spending and traveling and buying and spending and traveling and partying. After a few moments, surprisingly I have some bouts of anxiety. There is zero effort and no motivation. It might even lead to anhedonia. But how much is much? There are several studies linking happiness to specific numbers e.g., http://lifehacker.com/5632191/75000-is-the-perfect-salary-for-happiness. Allow me to have all sorts of reservations for these 'studies'.

And this is what is lacking from the lives of many millionaires. Motivation or even better anticipation. Normal people set goals every month. 'I ll buy a 300 dollars plasma set when I ll get paid'. It's one month's labour. You picture your self in front of the sofa with your new plasma. You picture your self and you are smiling. You talk to all your mates about it. That anticipation is what keeps you excited. It is what keeps you going. And anticipation is what produces the 'happy' neurotransmitter of nature, dopamine. This is something I wrote also in another post: Rarely the goal itself is a source of pleasure or happiness. The anticipation is what makes the brain go crazy.

This is the no1 fact in addiction research. The addicted person usually recalls all the cues that produced anticipation. Its not the drug that is so addictive. Its mostly the ritual before the reward. For a guy who gambles, the lights in the lobby of the casino, the painted ceiling, the smoke coming from a cigar, different colors, shapes, odors and sensations, the act of getting dressed, its the aesthetic of the ritual. For a guy addicted to sex with prostitutes, the preoccupation and the preparation is what keeps his addiction going, the neon sign he sees opposite a whorehouse at a red-light district, the process of calling different escorts, hearing their voices and arranging the price and the place. The candles, the red lights, the dark alleys, the cheap perfume. This is the epitome of all addictions, from smoking to practicing religion and waiting for the afterlife.

And this is exactly what is critical in addiction therapy. Get ridding of the all cues and stimuli, the list of chain of events which leads to getting what you want. After you get what you want, it usually lasts a few minutes of bliss until you get used to it and now what? I got my PhD. Now what? I became the president of the US, now what? Its like when your little child is screaming for a toy and then tosses it away for something else or like a dog chasing cars, you wouldn't know what to do if you caught one. Now, when you are a millionaire who does not need to put much effort to get what he wants because it is everything available how will you experience any joy at all?

There is no anticipation and not much motivation. Its like living in Heaven for eternity and start experiencing boredom because its all the same every day. An eternal bliss. Static. With no oppositions and contraries. You can't enjoy being happy because you are not experiencing the opposite state either. If you are always in pain, a few moments without a pain are the greatest narcotic in the world. If you are a billionaire who can pretty much have everything right now without any effort, normal stuff that we all enjoy after a day's hard work, like a glass of wine, a walk outdoors, a meal with the family, they are all taken for granted, they become trivial and they lose their value. They become nauseating. Imagine being hungry and I bring you 2 burgers. You ll feel full, fed and rested. Imagine if I give you 20 burgers. You will throw up.

And this is what I believe is happening with most famous people and people with too much money. They are always full. They are throwing up actually. They feel nausea. They lose motivation and often lack meaningful purposes and they lose perspective. This is why they might feel even more unhappy than normal people. They are alone actually. They are a minority.

The idea that money brings happiness is a myth. It can significantly improve your life but as it turns out if you don't have the proper mindset you will simply be just another messed-up person with lots of money. And this is what happens with the greatest artists of the planet and all our childhood idols. Usually, its their messed-up personality which prompts them to become artists, actors, singers, painters, bassists, musicians, directors, writers, in the first place. Money can do nothing in this case. What can they do about years of childhood abuse and physical violence and psychological traumas? Millionaires might be even more prone to suicide: They do not work. They have all the time in the world to dwell on their problems and ruminate over the past. And no piece of paper can save you from this torment and turmoil.

These people are nauseated, fed-up and bored that now only an artificial reality can produce the same amount of dopamine. They have built up tolerance. Artificial happiness. Coke, heroin, alcohol, all kinds of drugs and all kinds of sex are needed to get them 'high'.

Its cases as such that show that money does not equal happiness. After all, why do people need drugs? Why do most people take drugs? Drugs are a replacement for human emotion, they are a substitute for human bonding, its crying, screaming and craving for connectness, attachment, interaction. A need for communication. People thought that they could replace people with drugs, the so powerul instinct of social interaction. And this is what most people need deep down: meanigful interactions, human understanding and caring. And this is what happiness is about. Or just happy moments. You can pretty much handle all the hardships in the world if there is mutual understanding, support and compassion. But no drug can replace human attachment unfortunately. Whoever thought it was possible to replace human companionship with a bunch of papers? And this is what leads to suicide.

Rich people are probably the hardest to treat and many times the hardest to find happiness. Give a poor and unemployed man a job and his depression will probably subside. But how can you approach a rich guy's internal void and torment after he has slept with most women, ate all the food and drank all the alcohol in the world.