LOVE OR MONEY. WHAT MAKES US REALLY HAPPY?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Philosophers, psychologists, specialists in human behavior, from Freud to man, are those who are happy both in work and in love. Most people who come for a consultation with a psychologist most often feel dissatisfaction with either work, or intimate relationships, or both at the same time.

Freud wrote to his friend Flies more than a hundred years ago: “Happiness is the retroactive fulfillment of prehistoric desire. This is why wealth brings so little happiness. Money was not desired in childhood."

We did not know them in childhood. "The child does not know other money, except for those that are given to him, unearned, improper, inherited" (Freud). They acquire their symbolic meaning in connection with the understanding of "exchange". And they become valuable to us in hindsight.

For Freud, the model of happiness is love. To be loved is a desire that goes back to prehistoric times, to the times preceding the birth of the subject in recognition.

It is not surprising that it is precisely “love,” “love in the transference,” that turns out to be a psychoanalytic technique. The client comes to the psychoanalyst with a request for love. Complains of failures and problems in relationships, suffering from unrequited love, experiences grief about lost love, wants to return love, mourns the impossibility of receiving the love of his parents that he needed so much in childhood. The client learns to love, accept and support himself, so as not to depend on other people's assessments, not to need and not to beg for love from others.

And even when love is replaced by money, it becomes just an equivalent and an illusory opportunity to “buy” love for money. In the broadest sense of the word. Including love and sex with a partner, recognition, respect, power, popularity and fame. Money gains its imaginary value retroactively. ⠀

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanity. (Freud)

Viktor Frankl wrote: "Too strong desire for happiness, that's what frustrates happiness."

According to research by psychologists, people with a purpose and meaning in life increase overall well-being, increase life satisfaction, improve mental and physical health, develop flexibility in communication, increase self-esteem, and reduce the likelihood of depression. That is, such a person does not live his life in pursuit of happiness, but in the process of a happy life. That is why a person at a certain stage of his life begins to think about the questions - for what he lives, what is the meaning of life, what makes him happy and what he can do in order to make other people happy.

If we analyze how many years we purposefully devote to the development of our career: we finish school, go to university, someone else gets a second higher education, attend courses, seminars and trainings, develop as specialists, get a promotion or open our own business, and then we continue to hone and deepen our professional skills in the hope of achieving more.

Now let's look at the second main component of a happy life. We spend almost no time on acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to build strong harmonious relationships, preferring to “study on the job”: we get to know each other, fall in love, meet, spend time together, get married, have children, become disappointed, move away, take revenge, have lovers, hurt a partner, get divorced, find new love, and so on.

Why is there no universal recipe for happiness in love and making money for all people?

Because each of us has his own developmental history, which is based on individual unconscious desires and ways of receiving pleasure, as well as our unique talents. In addition, learning relationships, creating and maintaining them is time to be treated the same way as learning any new complex skill in the professional field. Then you can make your life happy and balanced both in love and in work.