What's the price tag on happiness?

Actually, there's none. It's priceless. But challenging the conventional view that "money can't buy happiness" is today's shopaholic youth saying, "Whoever says money can't buy happiness doesn't know where to shop."

It has become a materialistic world out there. Madonna had something going on when she sang "Material Girl". Songwriters have long warned against it: In the sixties, the Beatles sang "I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love" and today, Kanye West raps that "the prettiest people do the ugliest things for the road to riches and diamond rings."

Long gone are the days when kids were content with cardboard boxes, a walk in the park or a chance to climb the trees and pick fruit. Kids these days are asking for 3G cell phones, virtual reality game consoles and computer software. The yuppies of today sport designer brands, wifi-capable laptops and touch-screen PDA phones.

In an economic report from Workers Independent News, author Jeremy Russell writes: According to a new study, less youth subscribe to the old adage "money can't buy happiness." A poll of freshmen entering UCLA found that three-quarters felt it was important or essential to be "very well-off financially." In 1966, that number was only 42 percent. According to a CNN story researchers are finding that materialism runs rampant across socio-economic lines. One author found that parents, when adjusted for inflation, are spending 500 percent more on kids then a generation ago.

According to another online article: "Parents have reason to prevent their children from becoming too focused on material possessions, says Marvin Goldberg, Chair of the marketing department in Penn State's Smeal College of Business, who has studied materialism and youth. "Balance is the key," adds Goldberg.

Goldberg's advice to parents is to teach children the importance of non-material values. Show your children how much fun it is to go on a bike ride or how important it is to do well in school. "It's very difficult to fight the consumer culture by yourself," says Goldberg. "It's not just a matter of saying 'let's buy less.' It's a matter of time away from the mall doing other things." A study headed by Goldberg that was published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology found, among many other things, that materialistic parents raise materialistic children. Goldberg suspects today's adolescents are more materialistic than they were 20 years ago. Now more than ever, it's up to parents to keep materialism from running amok in their children's lives, drowning out other important values.

Those may be American findings, but they somewhat apply to the Filipino youth as well. With further developments in marketing, the availability of high-paying entry-level jobs (ex. call centers) and with numerous overseas Filipino workers with increased spending power here and abroad, it is very possible for us to heighten our sense of materialism.

We seem to think there is a deep connection between money and happiness. I mean, why else do we go to the office and work overtime, if not to be able to afford a 5-bedroom house or a good education plan? Why else are many fresh graduates excited to join the workforce and climb the corporate ladder? But the funny thing is, oftentimes even a lucrative promotion, the hottest cell phone unit or a brand new car can't cheer us up in the silent moments. The relationship between money and happiness, it would appear, is more complicated than the romantic entanglements of any telenovela.

Happiness remains subjective, but I think of course, the answer is not in money. Because no matter how many material things we buy, it's never enough. Happiness is often said to be a state of mind, rather than a state of being. It's being contented with who and what you have, and appreciating the little things in life that can't be measured with a price tag. In a sentence, Hosea Ballou sums it up best: "Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit."

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