Are you going to the Olympics?
I have to say I’m not that bothered for myself. But I’ve got friends who have gone for the maximum value of tickets they can afford (and sometimes rather more!) And I’m surprised that there have been various people saying that tickets are a waste of money in times of economic pressure.
If you look back at the posts on the site, you’ll see something that comes up quite a lot – happiness is about living your own life. Money is supposed to be a means to an end, not an end in itself. The idea is to use money to provide you with a “good life”. What is a good life for me might not be for you, and vice versa. So you have to work out what your “good life” is.
But although it is different for everybody, there’s lots of evidence (have a look at some of the books on the resources page) that a lot of happiness and feelings about a good life come from experiences. You’ll probably be much happier spending your money on experiencing life, on having lived while you were alive , than you will accumulating material possessions so that you can boast on your death bed that you were rich (but didn’t actually live) while you were alive.
And an Olympic year comes round only every four years, so you’ll only be around for maybe 20 of them, and you’ll most likely only ever see one in your own country.
It’s literally a once in a lifetime event for most people. So if you are tempted to say, “it’s a waste of money”, think about it. What is more important, whatever you are going to do with that money, or experiencing (and maybe letting your children experience) that once in a lifetime event? If the money is for something that you’ll really value and remember forever, great. That’s what I’m planning to do with my own money. But if what you’ll do with the money is to buy more “things” that you’ll forget you ever had in a few years, maybe you want to think about it. You can always buy things, you can’t always buy memories and experiences.
