the road to happiness

[UPDATE: 네이버로 "the road to happiness" 검색하신 분들 이블로그에 오셔서 감사합니다! 하지만, 그표현을 왜 찾으십니까?]

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I have no particular desire to become rich. If there's anything I want in terms of money, it's simply the chance to be free of scholastic debt, and to have enough money to indulge in a few personal projects. That would be all right by me.

Having spent my time since 2002 with the aforementioned scholastic debt hanging hugely over my head, I'm used to financial hardship and have a hard time understanding how money can drive certain people to suicide. I assume this has something to do with cathexis: you extend your ego-boundaries around something, and its fortunes become yours. All the more reason not to invest one's ego in financial matters, eh?

Psychologist Ernest Becker, in his The Denial of Death, argues that when one's self-image includes the notion that one is the hero of his or her own narrative, this generates a sense of immortality, accomplishment, and fulfillment. The loss of that heroic image can lead to various forms of insanity, and even to death (see a quick summary here). I think there's something to this idea, which seems rooted in common sense. The poor bloke in the above-linked article, a German tycoon, saw his empire crumbling and very likely lost his heroic self-perception. He apparently killed himself by walking in front of a train.

There are many roads to happiness, however one defines happiness. My advice, for what it's worth, is to avoid hitching your sense of self-worth to the money truck. It should be pretty obvious that being rich doesn't equate to being happy. Money's important, but is a sudden lack of money a legitimate reason to end your own life?


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