A couple of days back I attended an event organised by community members. This event was organised to assist with education and shedding light around financial literacy and explore paths to generating wealth within the community. During the event, the host raised and interesting question to the audience. He asked, “does money bring happiness?” The question had varied responses from the audience, slightly raising the temperature of the room. When he asked me that question, I told him I could not just answer that with a yes and no response. I wanted to elaborate on that on here. I will also start off with a question to you? When you think of happiness, what is it to you? My response was that happiness is subjective to everyone.

Happiness is an emotion that is short lived and to get more happiness, you need to go out and get more of that stimulus that initiated the feeling. It is an intrinsic chemical reaction stimulated by internal and external factors. So, does money bring happiness? Money gives options to choose, not happiness. So, money ‘may’ result in happiness, but it does not bring happiness. Most will disagree with that remark, which is wonderful. The main point of bringing this across is that one needs to understand what brings them happiness. When you can choose what to say yes and no to in life, you create a path not fuelled with regrets. You make choices that you are willing to live with, that align with your wants.

The other topic I wanted us to look at was peace. Happiness and peace are close relatives, but I do not feel they are the same. If happiness is something stimulated, peace I would deem is how much in your day that stimulation last. Being at state of peace ties back to our previous chapter on physical, mental and emotion because the more you learn to balance these three factors. The more you are bound to create lasting peace. State of peace is not just tight to one part of your life; it looks at everything in your experience. At true state of peace, everything that enters your space will be influenced by your being.