Is money more important than happiness?

After having read the basics about money in my last post  Money is a good servant, but a bad master, I would like you to take a moment and think about todays situation. Why is that we feel that money is very important. Even when we are growing up, money seems to be very important in life so we always have the desire to have money and to save it if possible for the times when we can spend it for our various needs. But what do we do at times, we become so obsessed with money that we start loving it and try to save even a single penny and avoid spending on ourselves. So either we are on the other side – extravagant or we are too cautious to spend it at all. If any of us have seen financial crisis while growing up or have gone through such times at any point of our lives we start taking money as a source of happiness and security. No matter it does make us secure financially but to some point. As after that we need to be able to spend it on our requirement to grow every now and then. I have been one of those people I guess who have given too much importance to money, not that I start mistreating people or something but when it used to came to myself I would hardly spend any money. It is from last two years that I realised that it’s my money and it’s OK to spend it on myself or to fulfil my needs and desires through it if needed.
It struck me today that I am on the path of being free from the fears as part of my bucket list for the year, but then I also realised I am not free at all. I do have my own attachments and one of them is money. There have been such times that I avoided having food when I am travelling to stay on budget. And I am sure everyone has gone through this at least once when we feel like it’s better to save money for something better than using it for some immediate needs. I am on a mission to find everything about being happy so this is also one of my concerns. This doesn’t mean that we need to go to 5 start hotel everyday to have the best meal, but it does mean that doing small acts like saving a meal at times can also make us fall in love with the attachment of money and start trading our needs in terms of money.
I have been trying to imagine a world without money. Wired right, but then I was thinking about the original purpose of money as well. Why we invented this tool – to fulfil our needs. Right, and what are we doing with it? Accumulating a lot of times. People coming from rich background might not understand it fully that there are emotions attached to money at times. What happens when we start storing it for endless future – people who are not able to earn enough go through poverty. How would be life when there is a balance in terms of money? Don’t you think people would be happier? Did we invent money thinking that there might be people who are buying aeroplanes and on the other end there are people who don’t even have enough food for a meal or shelter for shade? Was this the purpose of money that our immediate family is only the owner of our stored money whereas some of the people around the world are starving to death? How did we let this happen? We didn’t want this did we? That money – piece of paper will become more important than life. How is this fair to mankind that we start trading people for money and selling ourselves for money? Didn’t we devise this tool to make it easier to exchange daily good and food and not to make nuclear bombs? Haven’t we have been spreading unhappiness by creating lack of money in certain countries or areas?
As I am writing this my heart is crying thinking about those new born babies who have to see poverty growing up and who will come to learn that we humans have made money everything and they are nothing without it. My soul is feeling so cramped with this notion that we have limited the natural happiness that is universal and unlimited by our own invention called money. I can’t make people happy today as all they think is if they have money then they can be happy. I can’t bring smile on every face today as they haven’t eaten for few days without money. Why things can’t be simple and we can use the things given to us by nature to feed ourselves and grow rich spiritually. God or whoever made this universe didn’t put a price tag on anything but we did. Everything in universe is really free to survive and live but we are selling even water. We love to own things and trade it later whether it’s land, water or even forests. How can I bring people close to themselves when they are lost in this vicious circle? Share your thoughts on this.