Can money buy happiness after all?

After a much-needed hiatus from the blog world, I come to you refreshed and invigorated for the coming year. 2012 was a bit of an amazing year for me. I expanded my freelance writing business in general while also adding a new career or "micro career" as you might term it as a mashup DJ, took my friend's Feng Shui blog to a number one spot in the Google rankings and I got my first credit as a contributing editor to a self-help book (available here)—and I did all this while experiencing the joys of becoming a Mac user. (For as any Mac user can attest, Mac's are mavens of productivity which thereby gives them a special place on awesomeness lists the world over). :-)

In the interpersonal and social realms so to speak, I was able to travel a bit more: I finally was able to take a beautiful trip to Universal Studios in Orlando with my fiancée and I was also able to attend two internationally televised World Wrestling Entertainment events within a six-month period after previously never having gone to any events of such magnitude. (Seeing as I'm a lifelong fan of professional wrestling, This. Was. Epic!) Experiences such as these along with the smaller yet still poignant experiences of meeting up with Long Island relatives I hadn't seen in more than maybe three times in my whole life. made for some illumination conve I also found myself connecting and reconnecting with distant uncles and so forth at family events—family from Mexico, Italy and the Philippines (at least from a first-generation American cultural standpoint) for instance while equally expanding my willingness to say, try exotic food,  brave roller coasters, and visit niche museums in New York City, it all sums up a year that can only be described as one of my happiest ever! 

One reason I was able to do some of these things was because  of a very modest yet noticeable increase in my income that meant more money to fly to Orlando for a friend's wedding and a personal vacation, money to buy tickets to wrestling matches and money to expand my software lexicon to include a voice-activated dictation software (which I am actually using right now) and money to expand my business' productivity and even to make similar overtures in my social long-distance relationships via video chatting software such as Skype and FaceTime. So, as it turns out, in particular serendipitous instances, money and more of it has brought me a level of happiness. But in saying this, I realize it was not a particular amount of money that made me happy this year, nor was it any material gain. Rather it was that I used the money in such ways as to increase the quality of my life by increasing my quality of experiences in life with people, with ideas, with charity toward others, with clarity as to my intent and most importantly doing so with an open mind.

As the video below will show, this is not an uncommon occurrence among happy people who gain money. The premise: money can sometimes buy happiness, but the magic trick to experiencing joy is much of the time, as with most tools ilife, all in how you or I choose to use it.

More on money and happiness:

Roll on!