Marlo Thomas | 08/26/2009 11:00 pm

Marlo Thomas Spends Like Herb Gardner

In response to: Does money buy happiness? How much does it cost?

I always loved Herb Gardner’s cartoon about that — "Money cannot buy happiness, but it can buy a setting in which happiness is more likely to occur."

Read more about: Culture, Happiness, Lifestyle, Money, Relationships

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And Herb was right. I’ve toddled between the poverty line and low- to middle-class my entire life. Many have it a lot worse, so no complaints, although I’ve been miserable a good deal of the time. But I do worry how I’ll survive when I get to the point where I can no longer work. It’s been impossible to save hardly any loot at all. Cheers.

By James the Game on 08/27/2009 8:30 am

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I’ve seen your responses here quite a bit and I know you said you work in radio. If you are good at what you do and you have sounded like you enjoy your work, there seems to be no age barrier in that line of work. Or so it would appear from others I’ve read about that work in radio. You also have a definite way with the words and phrases you enter on these posts, so why not venture out to other avenues with your writing talents and I’ll bet you have the gift of gab as well So there you go, James, get out of that toddling mentality. "Curtain up! Light the lights! You’ve got nothing to hit but the heights."

By Evelyn McKenney on 08/27/2009 5:51 pm

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Very sweet of you E.V. McKee. But (here cometh the disclaimer after that preposition…) it’s all easier said than done. When you do radio news, you’re considered lower than the janitor at most radio stations. They don’t see you as having a direct connection to their bottom line. It’s the drive-time talk-show hosts that get all the loot and the glory. The news people work incredibly hard. Journalism has to be in your blood to sustain. I’ve bounced around like a rubber ball in the ‘biz, many times, it becomes physically or financially impossible to survive.

I got so disheartened with radio in 1995 that I went back to college (Grand Rapids Community College) 10 years after I graduated (from Ferris State and Central Michigan universities). I was aceing the classroom part of the Computer Electronics curriculum, but they just assumed all of the students would hit the ground running with the lab part (which was way over my head). So, I had to drop out. I flipped pizzas, I worked temp jobs (data entry), you name it.

Even though I’d had major-market news experience in Detroit and Tampa, a station I did weekend news for for four (three 4’s in a row!!!) years, would not hire me full-time. I even won a state (Associated Press) ‘Spot News of the Year’ award for the station in 1997! So, in 1999, I quit to take a sales job. The job ended when the company left the Grand Rapids market the following year.

I mean, I could go on and on. I worked at a business magazine, etcetera. But journalism is a barren, barren field for all but a lucky few who are in the right place at the right time. The rest of us grunts toil in our misery. I know of another guy in Grand Rapids who’s been a long-time news guy with nothing to show for it, really. He’s very good, very smart.

But every time I catch myself feeling sorry for myself, I think of so many people who have it so much worse. But whenever I hear people talking about a dream of theirs might be dashed, I have to chuckle. Try having all of your dreams dashed, and some of your loved ones gone on top of it, living by yourself for years. The old saying is true. You can either let it crush you, or you can "pull yourself up by the bootstraps."

By James the Game on 08/27/2009 8:39 pm

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P.S. You can tune me in late-afternoons (Eastern time 4pm-6pm) at www.wjrwam.com

By James the Game on 08/27/2009 8:42 pm

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I’m working on a setting in a little cottage in the West of Ireland myself.

By DeBúrca obj on 08/27/2009 10:24 am

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oney can pay the bills, and buy you everything you want or think you want but it CAN NOT buy you happiness.

Happiness is watching your child takes it’s first step, graduate from HS and College, and get married.

Happiness is knowing all your hard work as meant something to you and those you love and care for. That you contributed someway to make this a better world.

Sure it would be nice to go into a store and see something and be able to afford to buy it, but not too many Americans can do that, now can they. Keep your credit cards, If I can’t pay cash, it’s not worth having.

Happiness is a state of mind, it’s a place where your proud of what you’ve accomplished and knowing that what you did was for the good of others.

I had a beautiful home and garden and I was very proud of it, but with the sweet comes the sour, when you lose everything you have and have to start over from scratch you learn the hard way how fast and easy it is to be invisible and money can help in situations like that, but it can’t make you happy. ’

I worry from month to month if I can pay the bills or if I’m going to end up living out of my car. If I could work I would, If someone would look at my book and publish it I’d be okay, but it’s hard work and working the pavement that pays the bills, not the money, it’s just an ends to the means. Without the hard work there is no money now is there.

By Deniseann Taylor on 08/27/2009 2:50 pm