They say money can’t buy happiness. But did you ever try to buy it without money? 😉

Ha!

I tried to buy happiness with so many things, money included. True story.

I tried to buy happiness with work.

I got happiness with so many strings attached, I couldn’t enjoy a second of it because I was so busy untangling all those strings.

I tried to buy happiness with health.

This was a shady transaction. I got depression, the opposite of happiness. Depression is so damn expensive I quickly ran out of health but found I got addicted to the void. The withdrawal was an excruciatingly boring isolation in numbness.

I tried to buy happiness with love.

I got happiness but alas, I am not a being of infinite love, I put a higher price on my love than what the happiness factory was offering. Negotiation bore no fruit, but I found out I can make my own brew of happiness out of love. Who knew.

I tried to buy happiness with time.

Worst idea ever. I became a resource. That’s what the happiness factories use for the happiness of some, the time of others. My time became a raw material, no added value. I felt like Russia, important but with an economy the size of Italy. It sucked. I quit. Being. Russia.

I tried to buy happiness with patience.

Patience did buy me joy. Joy is the next best thing, when you can’t afford happiness or when your happiness is unachieveable. In no way I could trade neither patience for happiness, nor joy for happiness. In fact I found that the joyful are no longer customers of the happiness factories because they don’t make the plus sizes of happiness that fit a joy filled soul.

I tried to buy happiness with detachment.

Detachment once bought me a ticket for a visit inside the happiness factory and witnessed the illusion. I lost my detachment and found my disillusion.

I tried to buy happiness with money.

Money bought a lot of pleasure and fleeting instantaneous happiness. The problem was that it was a monthly fee. Actually a daily fee and in the terms and conditions it said that when the money runs out you automatically get enrolled in the free offering of constant stress.

I tried to buy happiness with faith.

They didn’t deliver so I wasted my faith.

I tried to buy happiness with reason.

The bodyguards kicked me out of the store, while the staff yelled behind me that they have the right to select their clientelle. There was indeed a fine print I didn’t notice in the education society gave me.