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Maha Tazi is a graduate in International Relations and Middle Eastern Politics from the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD). She is currently working as a Project Consultant in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at APCO Worldwide and teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor in Philosophy at UOWD. Maha has a special interest in world affairs and gender issues. She took a Women Studies course for one year at Sciences Po Paris and worked with several civil society organizations that struggle for the advancement of women’s rights including Association Solidarite Feminine (ASF) in Morocco. [/symple_box]
Dubai, UAE—In our thirsty quest for happiness, can money ever be an end for itself while money is truly only a means?
Money is a means which allows us to acquire or perform many things in our daily life: With money, we can buy property, start a new business, engage into trade, commute from point A to point B, go to the finest restaurant that just opened in the corner of the street etc. But, can money truly be the ultimate goal of our life?
In our philosophy class debates, I always urge my students to dig deeper and ask the ‘highest’ questions: You want to be rich – OK, but what for?
Do you want to save the world and feed the poor with your money? Do you want to travel the globe and discover a myriad of cultures and peoples? Do you want to start the new business or come up with the invention that will revolutionize the century? Or, do you want to build the biggest house on Palm Jumeirah, bring your folks over, and raise your kids there?
Sometimes, even when my students agree that money cannot be the ultimate target of one’s life and instead admit that their goal is to be ‘successful’, again, I ask them the key question: ‘what for’?
Do you want to make your parents proud and happy of whatever accomplishment it is? Is it for your own self-esteem and satisfaction? What exactly do you want to ‘achieve’ that will truly make you happy?
And in fact, the same goes for any other variable – besides money and success: In order to come up with the right answer about the purpose of our life or the ultimate goal of our existence, we should first start by asking the right questions: what do I want to accomplish in life? More importantly, what exactly do I want to achieve from the goal I set to myself? How much would be enough to make me happy?
Think about all the celebrities we hear about everyday, finishing their lives miserably in their bathroom… alone and helpless. We would think they had all the money and success in the world. We would believe that they had all their wishes fulfilled and dreams come true. But, was money, success and recognition enough?
Money is an inexhaustible resource which, when used as a measurement for happiness or whatever other variable, can lead to serious delusion. By setting money as a target for its own sake, we put ourselves in the vicious circle of human greed in which there is no way out. We would never think about pressing the STOP button because it would simply not occur to us that there exists one in the first place…
Celebrities commit suicide because money didn’t bring them what they want. But is money truly to blame if they did not define themselves how much money is enough to make them happy in the first place? Did they think about what they wanted to achieve with this money?
In fact, a part of happiness also resides in saying ‘no’ or ‘enough’ and appreciating every single milestone and achievement, by acknowledging: “Yes, I did it”.
The same goes for success… There is no way our success can make us happy without primarily defining the kind of success we want, and what we intend to do with that success – the overseen outcome.
It is also important to define how much success we want and how much is enough, for Happiness is not a function of how much we have in life – but what we truly value.
Do not fear to break your routine thinking, step over your limits and get out of your ‘mental’ comfort zone to ask yourself the ‘right’ questions – for every change starts at the individual level, and the same goes for ‘mental’ change.
[symple_box color=”blue” text_align=”left” width=”100%” float=”none”] Maha Tazi is a graduate in International Relations and Middle Eastern Politics from the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD). She is currently working as a Project Consultant in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at APCO Worldwide and teaching part-time as an adjunct instructor in Philosophy at UOWD. Maha has a special interest in world affairs and gender issues. She took a Women Studies course for one year at Sciences Po Paris and worked with several civil society organizations that struggle for the advancement of women’s rights including Association Solidarite Feminine (ASF) in Morocco. [/symple_box]
