What is a million dollars to me? Fifty years of making $20,000 would gross you one million dollars but, at 31 years old, I've never made more than $12,000 in one year. They say that if you put one million dollars in the bank that you could live comfortably off just the interest payments. It's as if one million is this mystical, magical number that can solve all of your cares and woes. There is an obvious and tangible difference between one dollar and one million but there is not one between $1,000,000 and $1,000,001. At what point does money make a difference?
People with a lot of money don't seem happy to have it, rather they appear preoccupied by it. Making money, keeping money, and spending money all create a stress all their own. A survey was taken of Forbes magazine's 100 wealthiest Americans in 1996 and, of those who responded, their subjective happiness was only slightly greater than the average American (Myers 70). Indeed, I am poor but happy although my debts stress me considerably. It is only in the world's poorest countries that emotional well-being correlates to income (Myers 70). Therefore, it is not money but security that contributes to happiness.
Some of our country's richest people, such as Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates, George Lucas, and Ted Turner, have pledged to commit the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes and charity during their life or after death. Perhaps they have found a way to buy happiness, whether or not it is their own. I have a short list of charities that I would like to donate to myself: The Richard Dawkins Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, donorschoose.org, and MicroPlace, which loans money to women in third world countries to start their own small business companies.
With only a million dollars, though, I would likely focus on sharing with those closest to me. My parents, siblings, in-laws, and nieces and nephews would all be well served by a small percentage of such a windfall. My father has been held hostage by Ford ever since he was hired by the company about ten years ago. He is under constant threat of being laid-off and shift switching while putting one son through college and having two more children, ages 18 and 13, waiting in the wings. He bought a large property in Ashland County shortly before home values dropped lost much of his retirement savings in our recent economic meltdown.
My older brother, David, is a diabetic and mostly blind due to retinopathy that went untreated too long because he had no insurance. There are not many jobs that he is capable of doing but he receives social security and medicare. He is attempting to get into the voice-over business since he sounds like James Earl Jones and the recording can be done in his home.
Jessica, my older sister, is a stay-at-home mother of five trying to make it on just her husbands salary. She was going to school to be a sonographer but had to quit when she was pregnant with her twins and had to start paying back her loans without having received a degree or being able to work. Jessica and her husband abandoned the house that they owned in the worst part of town when their bank refused to let them re-finance . They are now looking to declare bankruptcy but new laws would keep all of their debt intact.
In total, I have four nieces and four nephews plus my own son to consider for college funds. Both my husband, Ian, and myself are students as well, and although Ian would rather open a book store than continue his education, I would go to school for the rest of my life if I had the resources. My current plan is to take as many math and science courses as I can in Lorain County before moving to Golden, Colorado to attend school at The Colorado School of Mines. They offer a bachelor's degree in geological science and they have a graduate program in geochemistry. A million dollars would only get me to Colorado sooner, not cause me to change my goals.
What is a million dollars to me, then? It would certainly make a difference in my life and the lives of those that I love. Yet, far from being a magical transformation of our fortunes, one million dollars would act as a leveling force, freeing us from the anchoring weight of debt. Happiness certainly is not money, it is freedom after all.
Works Cited
Myers, David G. "The Pursuit of Happiness: New research uncovers some anti-intuitive insights into how many people are happy—and why." Scientific American. May 1996: 70 - 72. Print.
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