[oakmac]

Happiness and money are not correlated.

You are always 100% in control of your emotions: the choice to be happy is up to you regardless of what you're doing or what's happening to you. Money (or value) will come from following fundamental principles of success: diligence, hard work, honesty, etc. You often find the two together, but neither is required for the other.

For more information read Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" and Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning."

[zcrar70]

I'm not sure I agree that you're always 100% in control of your emotions. If you think you're in control, they're not really emotions anymore; you've suppressed them, and replaced them with what you wanted to feel, which is fine but isn't really the same thing. I do agree that your general outlook will have great influence on whether you are happy or not though.

Generally speaking, I think you're more likely to be happy if you are honest about your emotions and then follow them in deciding what to do. Then it won't really matter if you make money or not, because you'll be happy to do what you're doing (unless you decide that making money is a goal in and of itself, in which case you'd need to make money in order to feel that you've accomplished what you set out to do).