The Pursuit of OUR Happiness

Why do we think that to be happy we must have what everyone else has, or that we must make a certain amount of money? I am 30 years old married with two beautiful healthy kids. I use to think that if you had money you were happy, if you could buy everything you wanted you would be happy. But in reality money does not buy happiness. In 2005 our joint household income was about $110K my husbands’ job had him traveling all the time we saw usually on weekends only and the occasional week that he would be home the entire week. I worked about 50 hours a week not getting home most days until 8pm sometimes later. We had just had our son and decided to move to Florida from Virginia (that’s another story). We bought a beautiful home on a cul-de-sac with a man made lake in the back in a very nice sub division. We had two decent cars and a boat. With our current income this was on the high end of our budget but we could manage and still save a little money. My husband and I both transferred with our jobs still had the same hours and realized that we were never the ones picking up our kids from daycare, my husband was always gone and I was always coming home late. We weren’t happy we wanted to spend more time with the kids. Things starting going bad with my husbands’ job, long story short after 4 months of our new life in Florida my husband who made more than me was now out of a job. But we had $60k in savings and just knew he would get another great job. Six months later he started working at DHL. I was glad he was working but would tell people he was working at DHL until he found something else. I was being a job snob I didn’t want to face the fact that my husband had a blue collar job. I was having anxiety attacks sometimes daily from trying to make up for our joint income. Needles to say that was not working for me. Then another job opportunity fell into my lap, to work at a bank, instead of my current job at a sub-prime finance company. I thought this would be it I would work from 8 to 4 everyday have all the holidays off and be with my kids. I knew I wouldn’t make as much as I did at first but that it would come around. It’s now 2006 our current joint income $81K. Our savings were gone, and now had a second mortgage. DHL told my husband they could not insure him anymore to drive and made him a supervisor, with less pay. I was still making a lot less than I was use to. Now my husband stared looking for new work again. He found a job working for a medical supply company stocking the supplies and getting shipments ready to send out. It’s now the middle of 2006 our joint income now $70K no savings and borrowing money from family to pay our bills. We were NOT HAPPY, but yet we still had the nice house, with good cars and a boat. Everyday in 2006 I prayed that our family would be happy. I thought back to the time we were the happiest, when we had jobs that we were home an made about $60k didn’t have a lot in savings and didn’t have a lot of debt. On November 15th 2007 we paid the last mortgage payment that we were going to pay on that house, we decided to move to a different city and let the house go into foreclosure. It is now 2008 our joint income about $60k not a lot of saving, not a lot of debt. We now both have jobs that we are home everyday me by 5:30 my husband by 7pm if not earlier. We rent a small house that’s not in a sub division or on a lake, but we have each other and we are enjoying our kids. I am no longer a job snob and I don’t buy Coach or any other name brand anything unless it’s on sale!!! We are now happy and don’t worry about what we have or don’t have.

I think that you should define what happiness means to YOU not what other people think.