Money does not bring happiness!

What would you do if you win the lottery? Probably, most of us will spend the money within the blink of an eye, some others will save it thinking of the future, but it doesn´t matter how you spend it because you will never be rich in terms of money.  The point here is that even though you will have money, you will never belong to an upper class, to the wealthy class because you were born in other reality and the way you think rich people are is not completely true; it is just a fantasy that regular people has about having a lot of money. This is the case of Jay Gatsby, who was able to make a fortune –who knows how, the only thing we know about that is that it may not be on legal terms, - have a great mansion, a lot of clothing, and all the things we as regular people can imagine, all of that was done in order to be at the social level of the girl he was in love with. Tom, who truly belongs to the aristocracy, always thought of Gatsby as someone he had never heard of, and so that he concluded he was a bootlegger: “…I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him and I wasn’t far wrong.” (The Great Gatsby, page 143)

The novel of Jay Gatsby, as many people who read it may think, is about the American Dream that is concerned with being happy, succeed and rich in the US while you work hard to accomplish it; but in my humble opinion, I think it uncovers the disintegration of this dream in the “golden age” of America -where anything could be possible, it was a prolific country and its inhabitants were enjoying of the richness of the country,- because it is a reminder that you cannot have it all, that is why money does not brings happiness. We have to understand that in spite of all that Gatsby did, all the amazing parties he had thrown, the illegal business he was into, and I also think that it was not a coincidence that Nick rented the next-door house and his housemate had left the house to Nick alone, I think it was Jay who needed all the resources available to accomplish his ultimate goal, meeting the one who once was an innocent lovely wealthy girl, Daisy Fay, in order to let the love, once strongly felt, between them exist.

As discussed in class, the novel may be written with some truth in it, why? Because Fitzgerald, as Jay Gatsby did, went to New York to make a fortune in order to get the girl he loved. But at the end, poor Jay Gatsby got nothing in return. No matter what Jay did, or may have done, Daisy wouldn’t have gone with him because she was not part of his world, he was never closer to Daisy as he thought, there are moments in life in which regardless everything you do, are gone for good, those moments will never return, those moments vanished, those moments were magical, in both senses, they were a dream came true and then they were not there anymore. This is what Jay didn’t understand, he will never make the past again, what had happened between him and Daisy was gone, it was a true feeling though many things have happened in between they met again. 

To conclude this reflection, I would like to add that we need to be able to look the people that surround us, the people who loves us know, today; the things that we have, not the things we would want to have; do activities that fulfill our souls and bring us happiness because now is the time to enjoy our lives, not tomorrow as nobody know about tomorrow; don’t think that you don’t have enough money, you just have enough to put yourself outside your body and watch yourself being happy, doing the things you want, being with people you love, enjoying life; MONEY DOESN’T BRINGS YOU HAPPINESS, HAPPINESS ARRIVES WHEN YOU LET IT IN, IT COULD BE FROM NOW ON AND IT IS UP TO YOU MAKING IT STAY IN YOUR LIFE. That is one of the reasons Gatsby ended up all alone, in spite of all the people who attended to his parties, all those people who fancied with him, nobody was with him at his very last moment, nobody attended to his funeral, except those who loves him, his father and his only friend, Nick Carraway.

I would like to add a quote of the current Pope, Francisco to make you have a second thought on money: "No sirve de mucho la riqueza en los bolsillos cuando hay pobreza en el corazón."