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> If you want a shot at being as wealthy as they are, their advice is not going to help your odds, although you may well have a better life by other measures.

> If you want a shot at being as wealthy as they are, their advice is not going to help your odds, although you may well have a better life by other measures. Your point about not conflating their lifestyles with their financial security is well taken. Their point is not about wealth but about health, not about money but about life. Rather than money grossly gathered, they propose a life well lived. However, it's important to keep in mind the obverse, which is that one should not strictly dissociate their lifestyles from their financial security. Recognizing that lifestyle and wealth are uncorrelated (or loosely correlated) avoids the facile prediction that overwork will yield wealth when, in reality, overwork most often yields a miserable, dissatisfying life without extravagant wealth.

petercooper 8y ago
Rather than money grossly gathered, they propose a life well lived. Agreed, but I find such advice feels weird from people who are extremely wealthy. It's a bit like if a top chef did a book on cooking healthy meals - it might be packed with great practices, but the advice would come from a place of advantage that could cause blind spots in giving advice to someone with limited access to fresh groceries, a tight budget, and perhaps several dependents with varying tastes. when, in reality, overwork most often yields a miserable, dissatisfying life without extravagant wealth. I can't really disagree as such, but while I'm only one data point (who comes from a non-rich, working class background) I can't think of anyone I know personally who worked really hard and that made their life functionally worse, although I guess dissatisfaction is hard to measure from the outside. I certainly know people who've reached a certain point and then improved their lives by working less thereafter, but I still think any advice to work less or chill out early in your career is pretty dangerous ground for younger people to consider.
- mistersquid 8y ago
  > I certainly know people who've reached a certain point and then improved their lives by working less thereafter, but I still think any advice to work less or chill out early in your career is pretty dangerous ground for younger people to consider. That's a really good way of putting it, something I hadn't really considered. I still think it's too easy to find people who work so hard they suffer anxiety, sleeplessness, and ill health all while their personal relationships are neglected and/or attenuated. It seems clear there's a difficult balance to be struck between living well and living large (so to speak) and advice to the young and inexperienced from those who are successful and accomplished should always be judged critically. [This is a bit off-topic but my ability to upvote and downvote was nerfed long ago. I still do so, but my voting seems to have no affect on individual users' karma scores. I sometimes wonder if it's because I tend to upvote thoughtful responses to my own comments.]

petercooper 8y ago

Rather than money grossly gathered, they propose a life well lived. Agreed, but I find such advice feels weird from people who are extremely wealthy. It's a bit like if a top chef did a book on cooking healthy meals - it might be packed with great practices, but the advice would come from a place of advantage that could cause blind spots in giving advice to someone with limited access to fresh groceries, a tight budget, and perhaps several dependents with varying tastes. when, in reality, overwork most often yields a miserable, dissatisfying life without extravagant wealth. I can't really disagree as such, but while I'm only one data point (who comes from a non-rich, working class background) I can't think of anyone I know personally who worked really hard and that made their life functionally worse, although I guess dissatisfaction is hard to measure from the outside. I certainly know people who've reached a certain point and then improved their lives by working less thereafter, but I still think any advice to work less or chill out early in your career is pretty dangerous ground for younger people to consider.

mistersquid 8y ago
> I certainly know people who've reached a certain point and then improved their lives by working less thereafter, but I still think any advice to work less or chill out early in your career is pretty dangerous ground for younger people to consider. That's a really good way of putting it, something I hadn't really considered. I still think it's too easy to find people who work so hard they suffer anxiety, sleeplessness, and ill health all while their personal relationships are neglected and/or attenuated. It seems clear there's a difficult balance to be struck between living well and living large (so to speak) and advice to the young and inexperienced from those who are successful and accomplished should always be judged critically. [This is a bit off-topic but my ability to upvote and downvote was nerfed long ago. I still do so, but my voting seems to have no affect on individual users' karma scores. I sometimes wonder if it's because I tend to upvote thoughtful responses to my own comments.]