In achieving personal happiness, our relationships with other people (fam- ily, friends, colleagues) are more important than anything else. Issues such as work and wealth take second place. Argue in support of this claim.

The increasing pressures of today’s money driven world can often cause people to gravitate toward material items. But personal happiness can never be achieved through such things as work, success and wealth. Although these things may be nice ‘extras’, it is argued that healthy relationships with family, friends and col- leagues are the true secrets to personal happiness. This will be shown be analyzing the often lonely lives of many wealthy celebrities as well as the advice of older people who speak from experience. Firstly, the lives of wealthy celebrities often illustrate that money cannot buy happiness. For example, despite being fabulously wealthy, Robbie Williams and Kirsten Dunst suffered from clinical depression they attributed to loneliness. As their experiences show, the link between money and true happiness appears to not be as strong as the link between loneliness and unhappiness. Thus, relationships between people are more important than money. The advice from many older people regularly reiterates this. For example, all four of my grandparents claim family and friends to be the things that brought them the greatest happiness in their lives. As these sorts of sentiments are common among the elderly of all countries and cultures, it is clear that as people age things of true importance are clarified. Thus, human relationships are much more likely to be pre- cursors to personal happiness than money or careers. As seen above, wealth cannot buy true happiness and this is a realization that all too often comes in old age. It is true, family, friends and colleagues and the relationships formed with them are the genuine catalysts to lasting happiness. Thus, the old adage holds true: the more love a person gives, the more they get.