How often do you worry about the future and how you will get a job that will make you a “wealthy” and “successful” person?  Our bank accounts do not make us successful.  In fact, wealth leads to issues socially and mentally.  Happiness and success can not be purchased.

We all strive for happiness.  How do we get it?  Not by having excessive amounts of money.  In general, people think success is being wealthy. The dictionary’s second definition of the word “success” is, “The attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.”  Wealth is almost always a factor in our own definitions of success.  We come into this world where a crinkled, faded, green piece of paper rules our lives.  Why don’t we rule our own lives with our mindsets?
   

Society is a competition to be the best.  We have to own the newest and most expensive items, sometimes just to fit in.  These items do not matter.  Stress can be caused from owning an outrageously priced item.  What if this item was stolen or ruined?  If everyone has the newest items, people won’t be as impressed as you would think.  There will always be someone who has more than you do.  They will always have a fancier, more expensive thing than you.  Popular items like an iPhone are always being advanced.  For example, by the time we can actually purchase the newest generation of the iPhone there is word of an even newer iPhone (Sandler, 2011).
   

If we spend endless hours working for money, how can we be happy if all we do is work?  We can’t.  An average of 50 hours a week is worked by people who make $200,000 a year (Brambila, 2012).  That’s about 5 days, of 10 hours per day, per week or a 6 day work week.  Is one day a week enough free time?  Of course not, that is only 52 days a year to actually spend your hard earned money or use the items you have purchased.  36% of teens have stress related exhaustion from their school work (American Psychological Association, 2014).  As teens, we know how it feels to get home after a long day of school, be exhausted, and want nothing but to go to sleep.
A person’s wealth can affect the way society views them.  People with higher salaries are treated differently.  People will make efforts to associate with a wealthier person even if they don’t personally care for them.  Surveys show that people think that rich people are less honest than those who struggle with money (Romney in a World, 2012).  Expectations are created for those who make excessive amount of money.  Expectations of famous people are donating money and acting a certain way to the public.  Famous people go through a lot of pressure and stress just because they have standards that seem nearly impossible to meet.  Researcher Maia Szalavitz says, “Wealthier people are  more likely to cut people off in traffic and behave unethically.”  Sometimes it takes the worst situations like deaths in the family to understand what we truly have (Reiss, 2001).

Money creates the feeling of happiness which slowly fades to depression.  A psychologist at the University of California, Paul Piff says, "There is this idea that the more you have, the less entitled and grateful you feel; and the less you have the more you feel you deserve" (Szalavitz, 2013).  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wealth or success driven pressure can lead to depression.  Women with high positions in the workforce tend to have higher symptoms of depression because they always have to compete with men and prove that they are equal in the workplace (Eugenios, 2015).  Wealthy people can look at their things and know that they don't matter.  They surround themselves with their possessions which reminds them of the emptiness that truly lies.
Others may claim that money makes life easier when you don't have any.  We have the ability to surround ourselves with people who truly matter like our family.  If we take our time to remember that the people we love will not judge us for not having the items that society demands.  There are other ways to relieve stress and enjoy life beside what money can give us such as a walk on the beach or in the park.  People want people not a piece of paper with a dollar sign on it.  Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutu says, "In the African Bantu language, the word "ubuntu" means a person becomes a person only through other people" (Hari, 2007).

I believe that we teens genuinely understand that the most valuable thing in life are the people we surround ourselves with.  Sure, striving for success and happiness is important.  But what is most important is our definition of success or happiness.  Success does not mean having a lot of money in the bank, it means to go home everyday to the ones we love and have happy moments with them.  It means to truly know we are happy with the important decisions that we have made with the people we love.  We can’t buy people who love us for who we legitimately are.