Introduction
New studies have shown that materialistic communities view wealth as a source of happiness. An excess of material wealth is thought to be a measure of contentment in these communities. However, excess material wealth does not bring a genuine feeling of peace and satisfaction. Like the rich, poor people desire fancy material, making it human nature. In this case, the unceasing pursuit of material goods can destroy the sense of contentment. Certainly, everyone knows that money is one way of fulfilling their life wants, but when money comes as the first motivation factor, it could have different consequences. The paper explores healthier ways of showing the importance of material wealth.
Main body
There is nothing typically wrong with having or pursuing material wealth. However, during the process, one could easily exhibit high expectations of what money can do for them. Indeed, most people equate money with happiness or social worthiness so that they forget the real sense of contentment. After experiencing frustrations, people who overestimate the satisfaction of money develop philosophical statements to discourage others from seeking money. The new testament reminds Christians to differentiate between need and greed for money. According to (1st Timothy 6:10 KJV), “the love of money is the root of all evil,” which means it can push people to take and keep all unhealthy relationships as long as they get money.
Today, many people withhold unsatisfying careers that pay well while neglecting their social life and undervaluing the importance of interpersonal relationships. It is not surprising that the increased rates of corruption are a result of money forcing people to exhibit dishonorable conduct. In the modern community, the pursuit of money and wealth has consumed many people’s passions, making them unworthy regardless of their accumulated resources. In modern society, materialism is a shallow-driven status that makes people feel worthy. The Bible warns believers to safeguard themselves against all kinds of greed because a man’s life does not consist of an abundance of his possession (Luke 12:15 KJV). This suggests that people need to differentiate between success and happiness materialism in their overall pursuit of wealth.
Money cannot buy contentment does not mean that poverty can give it. In this light, it is clear that whoever is dissatisfied with money has the wrong view. Most people assume that money and materialism negatively impact overall human well-being. Though the difference between material success and happiness is not simple, it appears to be very clear. Happiness materialism brings about the sense of generating consumable wealth and using it as a sign of happy living. On the other hand, successful materialism involves possessing wealth as a sign of achievement.
Unlike success materialism, happiness materialism can influence life satisfaction negatively. Indeed, this viewpoint leads to low satisfaction as everyone aims to acquire a better living standard. This pursuit influences their overall life negatively because money does not respond to inner peace. The pursuit of happiness and materialism can lead to a person failing to discover true satisfaction in all the other important things in life. While still pursuing wealth, humans need a healthy way to show the importance of family, social and healthy lives, among other important things. Success materialism positively influences overall life satisfaction because it boosts economic motivation. Financial motivation boosts one’s future satisfaction and improves overall living standards after improving social, family, and health life satisfaction.
Luke’s gospel teaches Christians to use their material possessions to help the needy. The art of valuing wealth as a sign of success does not limit the owner’s giving capacity. People work hard throughout their lives and want to make more money to better their lives. Nevertheless, these activities do not amount to happiness or satisfaction because they create an unreasonable attachment to material wealth. To prevent this outcome, the Bible (Luke 14:28-30) stresses that people should plan foundations and ensure they acquire a wealth symbol they can maintain while avoiding mockery from the public. People are not satisfied by money or material wealth, yet they value the symbolism behind owning these resources. In this light, happiness is not deemed to rely on material wealth alone, but money can motivate people to achieve major milestones in the long run.
The Bible offers divine intervention that can be used to create new value for money and other things in life. (1st Timothy 6: 17-18 KJV) command the rich “not to place their hope in wealth” because it is uncertain. This means that the Bible discourages happiness and materialism and encourages people to pursue other things that make them feel happier in the long run. Happiness materialism focuses on promoting a prestigious cachet of wealthy status, which relies on other people’s approval and dominant extrinsic motivators. This is why material wealth cannot be relied on to provide happiness and satisfaction.
Pursuing prestige is full of hollowness because it does not submit to doing something they like. The art of doing what one loves is complicated because humans are created to worry about what other people say. Worrying about other people’s opinions has often motivated people to practice prestigious activities to appear worthy. The magnet of prestige wraps our beliefs about what we enjoy and makes us act as if we like what we do while learning to like it in the real sense. The Bible (1st Timothy 6:6-12) reminds believers that they brought nothing to the world, and the urge to get rich places them into the temptation of harmful desires resulting in ruin and destruction. This fossilized inspiration forces people to believe that anything done well can count as admirable.
Today, most things people do to seek others’ attention were nothing at first. For instance, Jazz was created out of people’s thoughts about art, but it is more prestigious. In this sense, prestige can be dangerous when it forces people to do what they don’t like while pretending to like it. People have buried their ambition and waste their time on errands that offer them prestige instead of satisfaction. According to the Bible (Luke 8:14 KJV), one can get “choked by life worries, riches and pressures,” making the rich life worthless. To most people, work and fun are different because worrying about other people’s opinions makes people do things that generate or spend money prestigiously. However, people can spend time doing what they like under real contentment.
Happiness materialism allows people to do what they want with their money but does not save them from the negative consequences of their usage choices. The frequency at which one finds themselves involved in daily activities to work and raise resources for a prestigious life determines the time to enjoy. While most poor people train their children to keep up with jones’s mentality, it is always challenging to have resources and still live a prudent life. The real sense of gathering material resources enhances the culture of appreciation and generosity. Success materialism ensures gratefulness in all aspects of life. Surely, this should remain the focus of all Christians to maintain a healthy appreciation of factors other than material wealth.
Having material wealth as an achievement allows people to buy all they need, take a comfortable dinner, and have other celebrations. However, helping others is divine and should be a priority for all people. Indeed, helping the needy has a special form of contentment that offers all believers great gain. People who are eager for money cannot help their mates in need because they cherish ruling over them. The Bible (Luke 6:35 KJV) discourages people’s will to rule over others and encourages them to lend without expecting anything in return.
Happiness materialism only works in communities where culture defines wealth acquisition and usage as a value of social worth. The Bible says that whoever loves wealth is never satisfied because “what people value is detestable in God’s sight” (Luke 16:14 KJV). Therefore, defining wealth acquisition as a necessity makes it hard for believers to acquire the envisioned gains. The reason riches become snares is that they become an evaluation factor to the mercenary terms that do not apply to life. Money can indeed buy many things and make people feel glad about themselves. Nevertheless, people need to remain careful and limit their preoccupation with desires that cannot be satisfied.
Often, human desires are debts that keep growing until they are fulfilled by any faster means available. In this light, advertisements and other visual things can encourage people to want many things as soon as they see them. The Bible encourages us to tame our desires because whoever can be trusted in the very little can be trusted with true riches (Luke 16:10-12). The more people have material wealth, the more they think they need more. In this case, the Bible discourages believers from gluttony and bad spending habits.
In successful materialism, the value of money and the pursuit of wealth can be done in a perspective that makes believers think they have enough. People are supposed to feel rich and have a soft spot of certainty when pursuing other things in life. In this light, one should ensure that one is not trapped in the spectacle of riches by seeking status at the expense of a fortune. The things that can allow believers a flaunt wealth cost almost similar value to the wealth itself. Under this consideration, people with adequate resources need to live a careful life to reduce the chances of being enslaved by the money they pursue.
Conclusion
In conclusion, viewing wealth as a sign of happiness is a wrong view that lands believers in constant challenges. However, this is not the end of viewpoints that can be used on wealth generation and usage. Christians should view material wealth as a gain acquired after success and not a need to live fulfilled lives. Doing so ensures that they appreciate and remain grateful for it. Gratefulness and freedom to use what one has allowed them to enjoy contentment and maintain valuable attention to other important things in life.
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