Rubin Pursuing Happiness Analysis

In Rubin’s writing in Pursuing Happiness she goes over the main correlation between money and happiness. She uses many examples that she constantly refers back to in her writing. Through the justified facts in the beginning to the relatable spending and decision making, she clearly defines that money, when spent wisely to the person can make them pursue happiness. Through her many creditable and relatable examples, she cleary accomplishes the purpose of informing us on how money can relate to happiness.
She starts off her writing with stating the big question, can money buy happiness? Immediately she states that money satisfies basic material needs and how money is in a case symbolizes status and success. She leaves a lot of her references to herself, but the work well since they are all very relatable. From shopping trips with parents, to items saved for a ‘special time’. She keeps all of her own references relatable to very similar circumstances that many people go throughout their lives. Rubin later states through her own experiences that you are the only person who can judge your own happiness. Starting with logos on the correlation between money and happiness, she hits

Stating that there is a big difference between smart money spending and freely spending money, or the short term vs. long term happiness. A woman who spent all of her savings, bought a horse. Everyone thought that she was crazy, but the horse made her extremely happy, even though it made her spend all of her extra money on it (299). Sure the horse made her happy, but the woman spent all of her money on it for the time of happiness she obtains through the horse. After thoughts on this, she realizes that we do similar things with expensive gym memberships where at the time, it seems we will improve ourselves, but it usually turns out to be more of a hassle to maintain the happiness