Much of what we write about in The Motley Fool has to do with means, not ends. Our typical articles and features focus on how to invest, not what to do with the hoped-for profits. It's probably because the mechanics of investing don't imply too many value or moral judgments, but lifestyles inevitably do.

I don't intend to tear that boundary down here, but the conventional wisdom that money doesn't buy happiness has always galled me. It was undoubtedly first uttered by some wealthy person who was constitutionally incapable of happiness either as a pauper or a nabob.

Literally, of course, it's true; wealth doesn't guarantee happiness. But a wealthy person who's unhappy isn't so because of wealth. His unhappiness is despite his lucre, and should be ascribed to other reasons -- character flaws, personal tragedy, unfortunate choices.

The thing that money can buy, however, is time and the freedom to determine how one's time is spent. If you're not devoting the majority of your time  to "earning a living" and don't have financial worries, you have the freedom to do what you will. You can embark on any fulfilling course you choose, unfettered by the constraints attendant upon the provision for your next meal, your next house payment.

So, while money may not buy happiness directly, it certainly can buy the opportunity for happiness the common man and woman necessarily obsessed with getting by cannot afford. Money by itself is empty, but in the opportunities it presents us, it's boundless. In "Nominalist and Realist," Emerson says, "Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses."

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