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People were created to be loved.
Things were created to be used.
The reason the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.
If you think money is more important than meaningful relationships, think again. A study conducted by researchers from the University of Rochester will tell you that people with intrinsic goals live much happier lives than people aiming for fame and wealth. Unsurprisingly, reaching for extrinsic goals are associated with negative emotions, like shame and fear.
While we know that people are meant to be loved and things are meant to be used and not the other way around, choosing worldly pleasures over meaningful relationships seems to be wired in our brains. In an evolutionary perspective, wealth begets attraction and attraction helps you get laid. Human beings are primarily wired for reproduction, after all. The problem occurs when we equate it with happiness-as if Mother Nature is concerned with that.
So what really makes human beings satisfied? Since fame, wealth, and other worldly pleasure gained from using people apparently leads to a dead end, how do we alleviate our existential crisis? From a religious and philosophical perspective, the antidote is the elimination of worldly pleasures as materialism is the root of all suffering. From a psychological perspective, the human brain ultimately gets more satisfaction from social connection than temporary pleasures.
An Eskimo Proverb sums it all: “To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.”
