This morning, I got behind the wheel of my beautiful Mercedes S500 sedan for a drive, and I noticed that just being there made me smile, in anticipation of the fun drive to come.

The Christmas music station was playing some upbeat tunes as I put the big, fast car into gear and started my drive.

And I thought that yes, money can buy happiness, for my happiness was genuine and pure and good, even though it came from a material thing.

But of course money isn't the total answer, for to be truly happy about everything in your life, you have to hvae a good personal life and a happy work life. If you don't have all of those things, you will have periods of bleak unhappiness in your life, no matter how much money you have.

But you can at least be happy for a while, if you really enjoy some of the things you own.

D

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I am not sure what the buttons mean. What is permalink?

I don't know what youtube does or how.

All my digital pictures are made a max resolution so they won't email. How can I cut the resolution of a tiff picture to a size that will email?

I'm afraid that your mother needs education! I'm willing to learn.

I agree with your message.

I took one at low resolution the other day but it's still in the camera.

I hope you get this. Ill click save.

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I'll answer this in mail since it deviates too much from the topic.

D

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Certainly material things can bring a certain amount of satisfaction, and when things feel right, it boosts our self esteem.

Unfortunately, such moments are relatively rare, and unless the rest of your life is okay, going back to the real world can be a downer.

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I don't know, is bleak the right word for that? There is a genuine satisfaction about it.

But going to the real world is indeed a problem.

What kinds of material things give you bursts of happiness similar to mine with my car?

D

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You're right -- I meant something like rare. Bleak doesn't fit in there at all.

I used to feel that way about my house and furniture, until the rats, and now I only get those good feelings once in a while. I'm always happy to see my birds, and my favorite tarot decks.

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It sounds like there is an interesting story behind the rats. Did they damage the furniture? Were you able to defeat them in the end?

D

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There were only a few of them, although one female had babies. They were coming in through two openings -- one in each bathroom. I used icky stuff to kill some of them. The exterminator closed the openings and I haven't had any since. I'm hoping they never come back. They were after the birds' food that the birds spilled on the floor of the bird room. I now sweep it once or twice a day.

I would be sitting in my chair, watching TV, and the rat would run behind the TV cabinet. I don't exactly know where he went after that, but he left droppings all over the place. It was one of the grossest experiences of my whole life, and it went on for several months before the problem was completely cleared up.

Unfortunately, it made my house feel not like a safe haven anymore, and the house and I have never quite gotten back to where we were in the pre-rat days.

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The haunted house has plenty of rats. They rattle all over the place at night. Sometimes they keep me awake with their antics, but so far they don't annoy me so much that I make a concentrated effort to get rid of them.

Of course they could be mice instead of rats. I just don't know.

I've been trying to limit the amount of food lying around, but of course they're here and I daresay they don't want to leave as long as the house is warm and the outside is, well, not warm.

It's too bad the birds can't be neat. It sounds like the birds need a maid!

D

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The birds do have a maid -- me! I've just turned into a much better maid since the rat incident...

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Can you train the birds to be neater?

I remember you can train the birds to do quite a few other things, so I'm wondering about that.

This really belongs in the Parrots community. Topic drift is such a curious thing ...

On the other hand, training the birds to be neater would no doubt bring you more inner peace, so perhaps it's all wholistic after all.

D

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Unfortunately, teaching birds to be neat is pretty much impossible. Genetically they are predisposed to drop things, to pollinate plants and stuff like that. They don't understand that dropping their pellets on the floor doesn't serve a useful purpose. Too bad...

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Could you teach them to hop on the ground and pick them up once they are dropped?

I guess that would require that they be out of their cage all the time, which probably wouldn't work either since it would just be another way to let them mess up the whole house and not just the cage :-(.

Ah well.

D

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Do your rats run across the room in front of you? That was the strangest thing about mine. Like it didn't occur to them they might have a longer life if they'd kept a lower profile. :-)

Rats are bigger than mice. I had a mouse in my Camarillo apartment and it was not a problem -- just got a mousetrap, mouse gone. Rats seem to be much smarter.

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Theoretically that sounds logical, but once they have dropped something, they are done with it. Completely and forever. Silly birds.

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I don't see them often, although I think I saw a mouse this morning (smaller than a rat).

What I notice is the huge amounts of noise they make at night as they run around in search of food.

We put traps throughout the house but never captured a single rat or mouse. Maybe the cold weather makes them smarter?

D

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What are you putting the traps as bait? The mouse I caught went for peanut butter.

The rats sometimes went for the sticky stuff, if I put it directly in their path. I got rid of the last rat by putting the sticky stuff in the old birdcages. I had to get new cages for Coco and Joey, because the rats could get into them. The birds never said a word to the rats. They are prey animals, and my guess is that when they saw the rats they just froze.

I'm so glad they are gone! It was quite an ordeal.

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David does not have rats - he has "elephants" running around gathering all the food he drops for them. haha

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Although money can not buy you happiness - it can buy you the closest thing to it - and then it would take you for the rest of your life to figure out the difference.

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they do sound remarkably life elephants, tis true.

D

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I think money, or at least financial stability, is a precondition for a healthy life.

D

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I think that is true in the US, because of the high cost of health care and health insurance. However, this is probably different in countries with National Health.

I think money, or at least financial stability, is a precondition for a healthy life.

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Well, I meant a psychologically healthy life.

I think the less money spent on the health care bandits, the better your health.

D

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Okay, but how much money? Enough to meet your basic needs? Enough to meet your basic needs and some of your wants? Enough to meet all your needs and wants?

And how much are you willing to pay in terms of time and energy to get this money?

Oddly enough, one of the happiest times in my life was when I had very little money, but lived in a great community with lots of friends with similar interests.

For quite a while I was very materialistic -- I wanted the best version that I could afford of whatever. Did it make me happy? Not really. It was sort of like a bottomless pit -- as soon as I had one new toy I played with it for a little while, and then it was on to wanting another new something or other. I don't think that was particularly healthy, although I accumulated a lot of nice stuff.

At the present time, I'm looking for a sense of balance. I know, especially since I've retired and have limited money, that I can't have everything that I want anymore, and it's okay. I can have some things, and the fact that I may have to wait for them, or choose them among a long list of temptations, makes them more valuable and enjoyable. This, by the way, it a major change in me that has evolved over the past couple of years.

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I think that's a misleading question because determining your needs and wants is a tricky business. Let me give you an example.

Meeting all my needs and wants in California would mean I could afford a house in Newport Beach with a 50' yacht in the boat dock in the back, and as I'm sure you know that's about $ 4 million and more each year to maintain and pay the taxes.

I think, though, I'd be just as happy if I could afford oceanfront land in the Philippines, and could build my own dock and boat which would, in total, cost under 10% of what the Newport Beach scenerio would cost. I might be happier, even, because I really liked the Filipino people better than those in my own country.

But I think you can live without all your needs and wants because those are, almost by definition, infinite. Might be time to upgrade the 50' yacht to a 100 footer, and that requires more maintenance, more money, and so on.

In order to be happy I think you just need enough of your wants to savour them. I'm still very happy with my car even though there's a newer model out that I'm sure I would prefer if I got it.

As for time and energy I can work almost all the time when I'm getting good positive feedback. I'm not afraid of hard work and I think if I didn't work, I'd just be bored.

But there does need to be some balance. I took parts of yesterday and Saturday off, and that did give me enjoyment that I would not have otherwise experienced.

D

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