Love and Money

My eighty-two year old mother was born in Harlan County Kentucky where she grew up during the Great Depression.  She knew hardship and she always said that "love flies out the window when poverty walks through the door."  Apalachian wisdom we might call it.  After all, even today, couples argue most about sex, money, and child-rearing.

What does success mean to you?  How much money would you have to have in order to feel secure?  A recent study by the AARP found that sex drops off after age 45 and is less satisfying either because of health concerns or because of financial worry.  And yet there’s just so much a person can do to ensure the future, so why let worries about things that are not under your control rob you of joy in the present? One thing you can do is learn more about money illusions in order to protect your love from financial strife.

Harvard psychologist and bestselling author Dan Gilbert explains how money illusion and other common errors cloud our judgment and get in the way of estimating what really makes us happy.  Growing up with one pair of shoes a year, mother was poor by today's standards, but she didn't know it because they had what they needed, and love mattered the most.  Do you know what makes you happy?