Money, fame or happiness? Are they mutually exclusive? (Fresh attempt to shed light on a cliched problem)

To ask this question itself is not fair. On one hand, the person whose inclinations tend more towards money or fame will lend more credence to them, thinking that somehow it’ll come with them. This way, they’ll be subtly led by the idea of mutual inclusivity to say that happiness will only come with money and fame. Taking this view to its extreme, the more courageous might just say that happiness is for the mediocre or something like that and run after the money or the fame as primary values and discount happiness altogether. This will be the mutual exclusivist view.

On the other hand, those who vouch for happiness will just say that money and fame ought to be discounted altogether and one must live in utter simplicity and austerity, because money and fame distract us from true, substantial and lasting happiness. One must listen closely to these people, since they seem to be claiming a sort of happiness stripped of all other trappings, perhaps calling us to look at a more pure and unadulterated form of happiness, a sort that can be construed as a standard for judging all other modes of it.

But then, the above views tend to assume that money, fame or happiness are either mutually exclusive or mutually inclusive. When they are mutually inclusive, happiness will be a necessary correlate of money and fame. When exclusive, happiness does not at all need money or any sort of fame. That means that happiness is necessarily not connected with money or fame at all. But one can be famous or have lots of money without being happy. One can have less money or no fame and not be happy. And one can be happy having all of them and having none of them.

Therefore, the fault I see is that happiness has been seen as being necessarily married to or divorced from money or fame. The moment you see that, the nature and puzzles regarding happiness seem to be more resolved and our real life examples of people with less money or no fame or the rich and famous being happy begin to seem more intelligible. My doubts do move towards those with no money at all being happy, but there are instances of religious beggars undergoing forms of happiness. But all in all, the question is more about what you actually pursue or are obsessed about that helps or hinders happiness.