if we didn't make it somebody would!

Money for the sake of money has become the objective of many (most?) of us. It has become a favourite habit and past time. If every excuse fails, this could work : if we didn't make it somebody would!

Masahiko Fujiwara - author of best selling Japanese book "The Dignity of a State"- says: "Japan used to despise money, just like English gentlemen. But after the war, under American influence, we concentrated on prosperity."

Similar thing has happened to educated Indians.

Does money make us more happy? There is overwhelming evidence against it.

Consider a paradox outlined by London School of Economics economist Richard Lay­ard in Happiness (Penguin, 2005), in which he shows that we are no happier even though average incomes have more than doubled since 1950 and "we have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work and, above all, better health."

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert goes deeper into our psyches in Stumbling on Happiness (Knopf, 2006), in which he claims, "The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future." Much of our happiness depends on projecting what will make us happy (instead of what actually does), and Gilbert shows that we are not very good at this forethought.

Michael Hecht- author of The Happiness Myth (Harper, 2007)- writes, "The basic modern assumptions about how to be happy are nonsense." Take sex. "A century ago, an average man who had not had sex in three years might have felt proud of his health and forbearance, and a woman might have praised herself for the health and happiness benefits of ten years of abstinence."

Artist : Richard Decker Publication: The New Yorker Jan 30 1960

Artist : Bruce Erik Kaplan Publication: The New Yorker 4 Apr 1994