MONEY

Rich People: Money Can’t Buy Happiness

Poor people know better

Michelle Teheux
Minds Without Borders
6 min readApr 4, 2024

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Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

Imagine a line that separates the people who are financially struggling and the people who are doing OK. I’ve trudged that line my whole life, and I feel the difference in my bones each time I shift above or below it.

If you have enough money, having more probably won’t affect your happiness much in the long run. But if you don’t have enough money, financial security will absolutely make you happier.

And yet I can’t bring myself to chase money

I majored in journalism, knowing full well I’d never make much money in that profession. I worked in newspapers for 30 years, until the industry imploded. By then, I was too old to start over in another field, the people who would not hire me made clear, so I started writing books, doing freelance work and publishing on Medium and Substack.

Looking back, I can see now that I ought to have ditched newspapers years before they ditched me. But I was in a hot love affair with newspapers and found it hard to believe they would really dump me after I’d given them so much of my love and devotion. I was like a wife in denial about her failing marriage.

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Michelle Teheux
Minds Without Borders

Lover of literature. Former newspaper editor. Fascinated by everything. Contact: michelleteheux@gmail.com. To buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/michelleteheux