Everything comes with a price. From food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education and entertainment. The standard cost of living has become more difficult to sustain.
According to the Los Angeles Homeless Service authority, there are approximately 50,000 homeless people in and around Los Angeles alone. It’s common to see homeless people asking for help. When times get really hard, they may even hold signs asking for basic necessities or food. There are lines of homeless people just hoping for a spot in a shelter or supplies from the food bank. There are lengths people go to for the possibility of taking care of themselves. You know what would fix this?
Money.
You know what would make them happy? A nice warm meal. A nice soft bed. A comfortable outfit. A nice shower. Food to feed their children. Security to live their lives without the added stress of possibly being attacked or harassed on the streets. All the things that come with a cost they can’t afford.
It isn’t just the homeless struggling to make it through each and every day. According to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, one in five people may not know where their next meal is coming from. That comes down to about 2 million people that are living with food insecurity in Los Angeles alone.
Going to the grocery store and being short on money is one of the most stressful situations there is. Even buying just the basic things like milk, eggs and produce can rack up a nice bill quickly. It’s not long before the cashier starts getting down to the last couple of items and realizing that you are a couple dollars short. You start to panic and ask to remove some of the items to cut down costs. There’s embarrassment and shame in doing so, and there’s an anxious line waiting; now everyone can assume you have financial troubles, and it had a giant spotlight shone on it at register three.
Another group that excels at being a perfect example are college students. College students try their best to do well in school and also work a part time or full time job as well. Their sleep is minimal, their health is always wavering and there is always a question of when they will have their next meal. Stability always seems to be on their mind wondering if they will make it to the next paycheck with the last $14 in their account.
In a national survey done by Ohio State University, nearly 70% of college students feel stressed about their finances. It’s no wonder that increasingly high rates of depression and anxiety among college students have also been reported.
As a college student, stress gets intensely worse when you are coming down the last of your basic groceries and having to stretch out a couple bananas, a loaf of bread, and a can of beans for the next four days.
Staying alive every day has become a chore, trying to ensure you are consuming enough food but also working enough to remain sufficient and trying to get an appropriate amount of rest to sustain a decent mental and physical health.
People love to say money doesn’t buy happiness, but in the end, it provides us with the basic things we need to live and survive.
The time we spend working to sustain ourselves is the time we could be spending on things that provide us true happiness, spending time with loved ones, spending time on self-exploration, gathering knowledge to improve and the list just goes on.
Working may create a set of ethics, good working habits and leadership skills – but these characteristics can be easily achieved in any group setting like a choir group, a band, a basketball team, book groups and so on.
Another thing that can be a factor of true happiness is success. Often times people achieve self-confidence and satisfaction from their accomplishments, but oftentimes, you need time to contribute the work necessary to have accomplishments. Time is something that is hard to find when you are constantly having to work for simple everyday stability.
Financial stability is the reigning factor to happiness. We cannot attain financial stability without money. Without money, how can you be happy?
You can’t.
