Buying Happiness Carolina Borello and Franca Bernasconi

The results of your tests were a blow to me as well.  I’m…really sorry.  I don’t know how—I’m just really sorry.  I wish I weren’t telling you this. If I can do anything for you, just let me know. – said Dr. McDanell.

A few more minutes of silence passed, Nick stood up, and without thinking much, went to the nearest cash machine and left his bank account in the red. Now that he knew that he had only 3 months left, Nick decided to spend his whole nest egg, convinced that selling all his sacrifices would bring him happiness, at least for a little while.

Nick popped into every shop he came across and, as if he were a sleepwalker, he started buying on impulse. During the whole afternoon, he got through money like water. Nick’s hands were now full of bags, his pockets empty and an open plane ticket in his wallet suggested that he might give a peaceful ending to his life. Perhaps, these were the rainy days Nick had put money away for.

A BROKEN PROMISE

Jane was having dinner with her friends at a chic restaurant. They had been doing shopping that afternoon and now they were chatting about all the things they had purchased: stylish clothes and elegant shoes of the latest fashion. She loved her new acquisition.  However, in a matter of seconds Jane starting wrestling with a guilty conscience, for she knew that she had splashed out on them. She bitterly regretted having sold all her family’s sacrifices. For so long they had been trying to create a nest egg for the future!

            Yet Jane couldn’t help getting through money like water. The girls, she miserably thought, were women of means. Therefore, if she wanted to be like them, she would dress alike. How much she hated to be outdone by them! They were not in the least a bit worried about money, but Jane did. She was brooding on what her husband would do when she gets home. But now it was too late. She had run out of cash.