I’ve had an article in my inbox for over a month now. I had been thinking about writing some blog entry about it. But with all the happy babyness of the last month, I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and think about news and the times that we live in. Jon, Ryan and Nathan have moved into their new house and John and I have taken a short sojourn to Utah so I guess I ought to get back to talking about issues and such.
Â
AP ran a poll of young people ages 13 to 23 concerning what made them happiest. It seems that money is nowhere near the top of the list. Most of them cited friends and families, God, pets and pastimes as the things that made them happiest.
Â
However, even though having money did not make them happiest, it did make them pretty unhappy when they didn’t have it. Not surprisingly as the respondents got older, more cited lack of money as a chief concern. African-Americans followed by Hispanics worried about it more than whites. And, here in the “duh†category, young people from the highest-income families are happier with life overall than those in lower income brackets.
Â
So if you’ve got it you’re happy and if you don’t you’re not. I think that what the poll shows is that admitting that money makes you happy is in bad taste.