YFCS-3/2.1, New Oct 2001. Molly Gregg, Extension 4-H Program Specialist

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Why We Buy Project We All Want to Be Happy

	Protected Under 18 U.S.C. 707

Are you a good consumer? Do you spend your money wisely and make good purchases?

The Alabama 4-H Why We Buy project will help you think about how and why you spend money. It will help you make better decisions--and be a better consumer. Did you realize that you are a consumer? What is a consumer? A consumer is anyone who buys goods (solid things such as food or clothes) or services (things you can't touch such as cable TV service or work done by a mechanic).

Sometimes we may feel like our happiness is based on what we can buy. What we buy is also affected by our values (the things we believe in). Values determine how we behave and guide us in making choices. Values change over time, and these changes are responses to the things that we learn and experience in life. External pressures put on us by things like our friends and TV commercials also influence what we buy.

By participating in this project, you will learn valuable skills that will help you with the following:

• Understand happiness as a basic human value YFCS 3/Level 2.1, "Why We Buy: We All Want to Be Happy"
• Recognize values that affect what you buy YFCS 3/Level 2.2, "Why We Buy: Our Values Impact What We Buy"
• Learn more about this project YFCS 3/Level 2.3, "Why We Buy: More To Do"
• Distinguish between what you want and what you need and understand how your wants and needs change as you get older YFCS 3/Level 3.1, "Why We Buy: Wants vs Needs"
• Understand how external pressures such as advertisements affect what you buy YFCS 3/Level 3.2, "Why We Buy: Busting Advertisements"
• Learn about how much things cost YFCS 3/Level 3.3, "Why We Buy: More To Do--How Much Does It Cost?"

Happiness is a basic human value--we all want to be happy. Happiness is hard to define because what makes one person happy does not necessarily make another person happy.

What does happiness mean to you?

In the box below, draw a picture of yourself doing something that makes you happy. If you do not like to draw, paste a photo of yourself doing something that makes you happy or cut and paste pictures from a magazine that represent activities that you like to do.

Talk to someone else who is participating in the 4-H Why We Buy project. Compare your drawing and your definition of happiness with that person's. How are your definitions of happiness different? Are your drawings different? Write about these differences in your 4-H journal.

Have you ever wanted something really badly? You thought that if you could have it, you would be happy, but you found out later that it was a big waste of money--and that it did not make you any happier? Often we think material possessions (clothes, CDs, computer games, sports equipment, money) will make us happier. Usually, when we think possessions will make us happier, it means we have deeper needs, such as the need to be loved or accepted by our peers. By discovering our deeper needs, we have a better chance of finding what makes us truly happy.

Below are quotations about happiness. Notice that not one of them suggests that happiness depends on what we can or cannot buy. Write each of these quotes in your 4-H journal and add new quotes about happiness as you come across them. Whenever you begin to think your happiness depends on whether you can have something, go back and read these quotes:

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved" --Victor Hugo

"I you want happiness for an hour--take a nap. If you want happiness for a day--go fishing. If you want happiness for a month--get married. If you want happiness for a year--inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime--help someone else." --Chinese Proverb

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." --Allan K. Chalmers

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." --Albert Schweitzer

"When a door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." --Helen Keller

Being Happy for Free

Below is a list of things that you can do all the time that will make you happy and keep you happy. These activities will not cost you anything!

• Love and help children younger than you are.
• Be truthful.
• Go out of your way to help someone.
• Don't steal, hit, or hurt someone.
• Honor and help your parents, family, friends, teachers, and community.
• Set a good example.
• Don't do drugs, drink alcohol, or smoke.
• Be kind and show people you respect them regardless of their sex, race, or religion.
• Eat right.
• Exercise.
• Brush and floss your teeth.
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• Smile!
• Laugh!

Write this list in your 4-H journal and keep adding to it as you do things that make you happy--things that do not have a price tag attached to them.

On the gift tags below, write the names of four people to whom you would like to give a present. In the boxes, write the gift you would give to that person. There is one catch: the gift must not cost you anything. Think about all the things you can give of yourself that cost nothing: love, friendship, help, and your time.

What To Do

• Find five quotes about happiness and write them in your 4-H journal.
• Find a way to help members of your family, your community, and your school. Write in your 4-H journal about how you have helped these people. For example, help your mother with the wash, help your father with dinner, help your grandparents with yard work, and pick up trash on your school's campus.
• Make an acrostic for the word happiness:

H	elping others
A
P
P	laying outside
I
N
E
S	erving my community
S

• Prepare a program on happiness and present it to your 4-H club.
• Write a poem about happiness.
• Go on a scavenger hunt in your closet and throughout your house to find all of the things you really wanted that you or your family members have purchased for you. List these possessions in your journal. Study the list carefully. Put a check by the items that have turned out to be a waste of money--the items that you thought would make you happy that are now unused.