Academic essay

Stumbling on Happiness
This text extracted from gilberts book “Stumbling on Happiness” talks about wealth and happiness and how the two relate. From the excerpt, it’s clear this is a topic that has been there and has been discussed by many economists. One of the main points that Gilbert highlights from the text is that one of the ways that wealth can be related to happiness is when it uplifts people’s living standards and gets them out of poverty. In my view, I would say this is true from my experience. One of the reasons why I work hard in school is for me to get a good job and earn a lot of money because I believe its the only way I can live a happy life.
However, Gilbert argues that being extremely happy doesn’t make one happier than those who are moderately happy. He says “People who live in poor nations are much less happy than people who live in moderately wealthy nations, but people who live in moderately wealthy nations are not much less happy than people who live in extremely wealthy nations” (Gilbert, 2006). From this, I understand that people do not necessarily have to be wealthy for them to be happy. Having enough for food, shelter, clothing and other basic needs should be enough to make a person happy because any extra money you make on top of this is not useful to you.
Another main point we learn from this text is that this belief that being wealthy makes one happy is false (Gilbert, 2006). Once one becomes wealthy, they get the urge to work more to increase whatever they have which does not necessarily benefit them.

Gilbert argues that the extra work people do only help in growing the economy, but it does not benefit them. This means that the economy of a country can grow if people are meant to believe that wealth will make them happy.Reference
Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on Happiness New York, Vintage. pp. 239-41.