Thoreau

I agree with Thoreau in that material things dominate us and make us unhappy. I think that for a lot of people they are unhappy because they care too much about material goods. They need to step back for a moment and think about the people that they have in their life and realize that someone cares about them and that should be more important than a nice car, or a big house. This is something that I think many people over look because they are so absorbed in their own ego.
Last year in english, we had to do research papers for our final and one person chose to take on the challenge of "does more money cause happiness?" and the results they presented based on compounded surveys of people showed that a lot more money doesn't correlate to happiness. The only increase of happiness was from lower class to middle class. When asked why, most people said because they were able to stop stressing about paying their bills. So therefore proving that for the large majority, money and material goods does not correlate to happiness.