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Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

316 points by gscott 8y ago

chmaynard 8y ago
Seems like a rather superficial discussion of possible motivations for the behavior of the most greedy among us. Articles like this may sell magazine subscriptions but they don't teach us much that is useful.
hprotagonist 8y ago
I’m immediately reminded of the denouement of “This is Water”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s . It’s become/ perhaps always has been a little trite or on the nose, but it’s also not wrong. If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
- rabidrat 8y ago
  Really insightful, thank you. I'm struck by this: > Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. which suggests that Imposter Syndrome is a result of "worshipping" intellect, particularly our own individual intelligence. We spend many days judging interview candidates for their intelligence (even when it is not clear that anything more than adequate intelligence is needed for quality, lasting work), and then wonder why we are so afraid that we feel like imposters.
  - Taylor_OD 8y ago
    Oof. I listen to this essay regularly but this part has never stuck out to me in particular before.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I think imposter syndrome is something completely different - a result of answers begetting more unanswerable questions and the "hard" not feeling significant anymore. Thus it becomes "Anyone who can do N dimensional vector calculus can do what I do but I can't even come up with a way to unify physics or prove or disprove P = NP, I'm a failure and a fraud." Even though there are say only 5 people in the world capable of rederiving his work in a year. The runaway progression is the same however. That happens in some cases with eating disorders - even when ribs are showing and they weigh under 100lbs they are convinced they are fat.
- monkeydreams 8y ago
  Trite, but not untrue.
- slededit 8y ago
  It’s a nice thought, and gives a sense the world is fair. But it doesn’t ring true to me. Some people are hot, and they know it. They do not feel ugly. Ditto for intelligence.
  - bo1024 8y ago
agumonkey 8y ago
I read "health" .. this article was confusing at first. Wealthy people are as unbalanced as poor people, good to know. I believe that a good group (friends/village) can tame that. You stop caring about your posession when you care for the group and its joy fulfills you.
tryptophan 8y ago
One comment I read somewhere is that with increasing wealth you lose the ability to make sense of the numbers anymore. What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense? The fear of losing it all, however, stays the same no matter the amount, and so the urge to keep accumulating doesn't go away despite a rational view that would recognize that 100million is more than enough.
- naasking 8y ago
  > What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense? It's roughly the difference between being able to own a private jet. There's probably always something spurring one on to the next level if you let it.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Seriously. Octopus cost $200 million. Anyone who wants her is going to have to be a billionaire. There's always something out there you can't have till you're mega-rich.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  I bet wealth liquidity scales super-linearly with net worth. A $50-millionaire likely has maybe $500k in cash, $2-5MM in liquid investments, and another $2-5MM in semi-liquid assets, like real-estate. While a $100-millionaire probably has like $2MM in cash, $10-20MM in liquid investments, and $10MM in real-estate. Because of this, the amount these two can borrow is staggeringly different.
skookumchuck 8y ago
Some people enjoy making money. It shouldn't be a surprise that very rich people got that way because they enjoy making money - and why should they stop?
- Wh1skey 8y ago
  The reason I enjoy making money is because I think of it as creating value for others. For some reason, I just enjoy creating value for others.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    In a free market, money is made by creating value for others.
    - CamTin 8y ago
      ...or by owning the means that other people use to provide value.
8bitsrule 8y ago
I'll buy this picture. Feelings of insecurity created by someone (anyone) who has more than you fits in with 'keeping up with the Joneses'. Further reasoning about irrational behavior is as unconvincing as science trying to explain magic. (Which in many cases might be helpful in explaining the long chains of coincidence that led to wealth, despite the often-fragile egos involved.) Some of the very rich try to invest in philanthropic causes. Studying the magnates of a century ago can be helpful. (E.g. the story of T. B. Walker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker ) On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn (not unprecedented in history).
- ghufran_syed 8y ago
  "On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn" That view seems inconsistent with this: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-...
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    There are 2,200+ billionaires in the world. 14 is a blip.
RickJWagner 8y ago
I'm a regular participant on 'Bogleheads' forum. If forum posters are to believed, there are quite a few high net-worth individuals there. Many are motivated by 'the game'. But I am not depressed by this. On the contrary, it seems to me that most take care to use their money in constructive ways. They seek to find ways to build better futures for those that will follow them. Some even pledge to give a bunch of it away, after the great examples set by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. There are some bad apples, probably, but I think there are a lot more good ones.
- topmonk 8y ago
  Whether they are good people or not really depends on what they would do to make their money, rather than how they would spend it. The lengths one would go to to become rich rather then where a rich person throws the breadcrumbs of what they already have truly defines them, and also, what evil may be created in this world.
Tade0 8y ago
Wasn't it really about power from the get go? Money is a pretty straightforward proxy for power and power(over people) is always relative. To me it all plays out in a much weirder manner among common people in countries that experienced rapid growth. Before my eyes my environment went from that of brutal poverty to - sometimes very uneven - prosperity.
- spunker540 8y ago
  That’s what Nietzche argues is humankind’s ultimate drive — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power
bunderbunder 8y ago
The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser is a good read. It's a popular work that goes through a lot of research on how focusing on material definitions of success can ultimately run counter to your emotional well-being. The pleasure of a big new acquisition is fleeing, so you get stuck forever chasing bigger and better highs.
daxfohl 8y ago
I disagree. I think the primary motivation is you can always lose it all, or at least a lot of it. No matter how much you have or where you put it. The more you have, the more you stand to lose, especially due to macroeconomic shifts beyond your control, hyperinflation, war, etc. That's why what you have is never enough and seems like 3x (twice as rich, plus 1/3 as a backup) would be.
- everdev 8y ago
  Yes, or even the fear of dropping a status or income level can be enough motivation for some.
lisper 8y ago
A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing something worthwhile just because people were upvoting me. There is something visceral about looking at a number that you have somehow convinced yourself is a measure of your value as a human being, and seeing that number get bigger, even if at the end of the day that number is utterly meaningless. And, of course, when it comes to money the number is not meaningless, which makes the effect that much more powerful. BTW, money is not just good for buying material things. You can spend arbitrary amounts of money on philanthropy and political donations. Once you start to do that, a lot of people start to want to be your friend. That kind of attention and deference can also be a very powerful drug.
- cyberferret 8y ago
  Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. I stopped tracking my own karma score a while back. I was getting upset by even a handful of downvotes, and as soon as I decided to just publish my thoughts without caring about down (or up) votes, my happiness went up quite a few notches.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. It's a well kept secret. And I've been much happier since I stopped looking at it, but every now and then I fall off the wagon and sneak a peek.
    - cyberferret 8y ago
      Well, I implore you to do us all a favour and NOT publish the link to the leaderboard... :)
      - 8y ago
cyberferret 8y ago
But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others? My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feelings of comparison and inadequacy. It is a self destructive feeding frenzy that can never assuage itself.
- Declanomous 8y ago
  I think this is partly why "old money" isn't flashy like nouveau rich money. It's easier to blow a fortune than it is to make a fortune.
- combatentropy 8y ago
  It is not advertisers who are all to blame. Pride and envy predate magazines and TV.
  - dagw 8y ago
    Pride and envy predate magazines and TV. So does advertising.
  - eeZah7Ux 8y ago
    So does cholera. But if you spend your work time trying to spread cholera you get a bit of blame.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  It isn't the marketing and advertising industry. Greed, Pride, Lust, Envy, Gluttony - 5 of the 7 deadly sins.. Aristotle might not have reduced it to such a short list, but he wrote plenty on similar ideas. So there's 2300 years on paper... It's really human nature.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Yes but the marketing industry fans the flames. Edward Bernays has a lot to answer for.
sytelus 8y ago
TLDR; Michael Norton did the survey of people with networth > $1M and most said they need 2 or 3 times more. People with networth > $100M also don't feel satisfied because they tend to answer the question "Am I better off than last year?" by comparing to other folks who did even better than them. It looks to me that if you are in $3M to $10M bucket, you have financial freedom to live low key upper-middle class life. This is what Tim Ferris refers to as "New Rich". However when you are above $10M, something else happens. While you have financial freedom, you are also just starting to taste freedom of will. Sooner or later it might get annoying that you must wake up at 5 AM because that's the only flight available OR that you can't get the penthouse suit because someone more wealthier decided to book it out for entire year. You still depend on publicly available utilities fiercely competed upon. Unlike your peers with $100M you can't own GulfStreams or have $25M Malibu mentions overlooking Pacific with infinity pools. When you get to $100M, things change again. Now you do have little gulfstream but it's far cry from private 747 with king size bedroom, office, bar and a chef. Sure, you got that mention in Malibu but that large paradise estate in Hawaii with its own beach and waterfalls is out of your reach. When you meet your billionaire friends in blue waters of Greek island of Creet, your little yatch looks like baby's first toy missing things like its own sub and helipad. Life is good but not that good because resources at your disposal have still limitations to achieve maximum possible freedom of will. People tell you how awesome you are but you keep finding new limiting ways you are restricted to act by your will every single day. I think its only above $3B that you are in realm of pure score keeping, the quality of material possessions cannot be improved further and freedom of will is pretty much maximized. Now you are truly limited by time, and much less by ideas. So until you get in to that top 1000 individuals, it's going to sting one way or another.
- scottlegrand2 8y ago
  This is very similar with what I tell people: that every time you put another zero on your net worth, your world changes. The follow-up is that you probably shouldn't be taking life advice for your immediate situation from people who are more than one zero in either direction away from you because they're giving advice for their world, not yours. my personal financial life goal is never to be worth more than $10M and I am knocking that go a lot of the park right now! Life after $10M, from knowing people with that kind of money, just gets more and more complicated and no one seems truly happy, as they drown in first world problems.
dba7dba 8y ago
I think some rich people are not into making more money to be happirr but just to have more than the guy next to him.
dba7dba 8y ago
I don't think a lot of rich are into making more money to be happier. But rather to have more than the guy next to him. It's treated more like a game.
- unforeseen9991 8y ago
  That is literally what the article is all about
dovvdkc 8y ago
“For one study, Norton and his collaborator paid each respondent about 46 euros for every completed questionnaire. “You can run a survey on regular people for like a dollar,” “ Hmm I refused to give my email to a cable provider for a $100 Best Buy gift card (I was in Best Buy). At the time I thought who would trade their email address for a lousy $100? Now I know.
- kaybe 8y ago
  Do you only have one email adress? I wouldn't give out the main one, but some of the others.. or just make a new account somewhere and forward it to your main, then delete it if it ever collects spam.
  - dovvdkc 8y ago
    I don’t like to give out my fake one either. Wouldn’t want my porn spam to get diluted by COMCAST offers. Actually you could learn a lot about me and who I am by cross referencing all the places i’ve given my fake address to. Since I don’t want to create a thousand fake addresses, I don’t give that out either for a mere $100
    - kaybe 8y ago
      I see, though $100 is not that little.. I like mailhero (mailhero.io) where you can give out unique email adresses (free, but maybe better not for important stuff) but of course it is not very hard to trace. (It works like this: You have one identifier (eg smith) and then add anythingn before the dot, like company.smith@mailhero.io), so the identifier is the same in all cases.)
danharaj 8y ago
The bourgeoisie have false consciousness too.
antognini 8y ago
There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i... The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this might be a stretch at the low end), have multiple residences in expensive parts around the globe, have personal staff, etc. After that level of wealth, more money doesn't really get you material things anymore, so much as influence and access to other important people.
- 10122018 8y ago
  > in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in the bank, and no safety net, I wouldn't describe my life as comfortable, but I'm not starving or sleeping on a park bench either. My largest expenses are rent, food and medical expenses. If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life. I'd never own a Ferrari, but why would I need to? In other words, I think your comment reflects the very problem that the posted article is discussing. To me, the idea of needing $10 million to be comfortable and not have to worry about finances seems absurd. Unless your idea of a comfortable life involves owning a luxury car, or renting a $2,000 a night suite. I live on what many here would consider to be an extremely low income, and the only thing I feel I'm really missing out on is desperately needed dental work, and even that would be measured in thousands of dollars, not millions. I apologise if my comment sounds harsh or impolite. It is not intended to be. I'm just amazed that anybody would think they need $10 million to be comfortable.
  - MuffinFlavored 8y ago
    > I'd never own a Ferrari, but why would I need to? Because you were raised poor, you still are poor, so your views on life do not revolve around one of the finest and most exclusive automobiles money can buy. You've never been in a position to be even remotely close to owning a Ferrari, so your brain has ignored the value they offer. Yes. Driving a high speed status symbol can be rewarding. It can start conversations. It can get you access to groups of people who would never have looked at you before. Is it easy to write them all off on the premise of "if they wouldn't talk to me when I had a Honda, then they are vain and I don't want to talk to them?" Sure. But you'd be missing out on potentially meaningful connections. On top of that, hearing a visceral exhaust note while rapidly accelerating is adrenaline inducing. Does it get boring after 10,000 hours? Probably. But, what doesn't in life? The same way a trust fund child never views owning a dump or being in debt. It just isn't in your payscale/range, so why waste the brain cycles?
pmoriarty 8y ago
Some thoughts from Seneca: "Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich."[1] "Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough."[2] "I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him."[3] [1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_4 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let... [2] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let... [3] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...
- rolleiflex 8y ago
  One of my favourite philosophers and one I try to follow the most, but the unacquainted reader should be made aware before reading his commendations of poverty that Lucius Annaeus Seneca was the richest man in the Roman Empire.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    Thank you. I’ll pass on reading The Bill Gates Guide to Being Poor and Happy About It too :)
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Nasrudith 8y ago
I had always assumed it was a matter of self-perpetuation given what I have seen at lower levels with thriftiness and it holding despite being amply able to afford it. Those who are in habits of saving and investing money will keep on doing as an end to itself well past the actual needs. The biggest score cards show a bit of priorities. Many wealthy industrialists eventually turn to charities despite being ruthless out of concern for legacy,spirituality, or a sense of noblise oblige. I would like to think that if I got 'buying additional mansions doesn't make a dent' - obscenely wealthy I'd start funding major biotech research projects both to do good and because lifespan is the limit anyway. That is something that I've found a bit odd about the megarich - that we don't see more throwing their fortunes away at biotech research given lifespan is a limit far beyond - and most don't plan on giving full fortunes to their heirs anyway.
seibelj 8y ago
The more money and assets I accumulate, the safer I feel. This is one driver that will likely prevent me from retiring early - the fear of destitution.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  The "one more year" problem, I'll just work one more year to top up my funds. In reality I suspect most people have the decision forced on them either by their employer, the jobs market or health problems.
- michael_leachim 8y ago
  That feeling is false. No one is safe from sudden illness and death of themselves and their loved ones. Access to medicine can help, but it is not going to eliminate the problem.
kamaal 8y ago
Mostly because money has nothing to be with being happy, sad, healthy, immunity from disease, depression, or death. The utility of money is to make you comfortable, give your freedom, and take of other things while you suffer though life. Money or wealth should never be conceived as a hammer to down all nails.
sjg007 8y ago
It's not about the money.
scotty79 8y ago
I think it's possible that some people became rich because they were not satisfied with money they had. They are just still unhappy with money they have because nothing changed about their happiness and their sources, they just got more money.
salawat 8y ago
I don't know about anyone else, but in the case I were hypothetically independently wealthy, I'd still be miserable based on the fact that the system was still stuck in a mode where doing something I'd done would be required. I don't believe "play or starve" economics are the be all, end all of human existence, but I'll be damned if I can figure out a way to make it work without just about everyone else being willing to "come along for the ride" as it were.
IllusoryReverb 8y ago
I have had the sense that guilt plays a part in dissatisfaction with wealth, whether consciously or subconsciously. The way the economic system is set up, a person can only have money, wealth at the expense of others. I only have what I have because someone else has been deprived of it. Its difficult to enjoy something when at the back of ones mind, it is earned off the suffering (real or imagined) of others. I came to this conclusion one night whilst walking along the street some time back. I wanted to buy myself a packet of fries. Not far from the door of chips shop, there was a woman there with three children, laying down cardboard preparing to sleep for the night. The sense of what turned out to be guilt and shame that came upon me was palpable. It actually hit me that I could casually walk in and buy myself something I didn't really need whilst here was a woman with three kids sleeping on the street with nothing. Investigating my feelings further brought about I had so much compared to them. And what I had was not enough to make a real difference in their lives. Further investigation and thought brought about the idea that this might be the same not just for me, but for all people, getting progressively worse the higher up the wealth steps you go. The basic idea being that as currently set up, economics means that it is a zero sum game. In terms of money, either I have the 100 dollars or you have 100 dollars, we cannot both have the same 100 dollars. This means, (and I am open to being corrected) that what I have is at the expense of another - my boss, my brother who is having a hard time making ends meet, or all the others who have to walk kilometres to get to work to save on money used in public transport. My take away and current struggle is that at some point, in order to just live, we have to find a way to deal with this feeling of guilt - which in my case, took on the form of first denying responsibility and assigning blame on others (government & other institutions, parenting, poor decision making, lack of intelligence etc), or just ignoring it because 'there is nothing I can do' about it because 'I also have problems and I dont have enough to make a meaningful difference'. I still don’t have a good answer to this. Thats my 2 cents.
- badpun 8y ago
  > I only have what I have because someone else has been deprived of it. This is clearly incorrect. If you made something and now own it, the thing did not exist until you made it - hence no one could have been deprived of it.
skybrian 8y ago
The paper is at [1]. It's by no means a random sample. (That would be pretty difficult.) I wonder what you'd have to do to find the people who say "enough is enough?" It seems they're not customers of this firm. [1] https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540
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golergka 8y ago
There is a critical component in such motivation that is not even mentioned in this article. The more money you have, the more ability you have to change the world around you. Among many, many financially successful people I know, there are a LOT who are motivated by money and competitiveness themselves. However, NONE of them are founders of new businesses. (Real new businesses, that intend to stay in the picture and actually do something for the customers, instead of ending up acquihired or otherwise melted back into some comfortable corporate structure. Most of tech start-ups are really far from this image, and are created people who know exactly what their exit strategy is). These founders are always motivated by their desire to change something in the world: they love the field they're working in, and they love the product they're creating, and they wouldn't miss it for the world. And yes, they want more money, because it's the universal resource out of which they build the things they so love building. So, in other words, the headline of this article should have been "Why Aren't New York Finance Executives And Other Thin Subset of Rich People We Got A Hold Of Happy With The Money They Have".
bisRepetita 8y ago
>“The sensation of ‘being well-off,’” [...] “is not about fulfilling a childhood dream of buying a sailboat or something; feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group When there is a debate about increasing % of taxes further for higher income (often in the name of redistribution, reducing inequalities), I often hear the argument that it will reduce the motivation for the higher income people to keep working and keep contributing to society. I think the argument is wrong: it's a social game, and if the same rules apply to all, they all can keep playing the same game with the same motivation of outdoing their peers.
- hueving 8y ago
  Rich peoples' reference group isn't limited to a single country though. There is no way we can apply the same rules to all, unless there is a new global order I haven't heard of. See: the disaster of the US yatch manufacturing tax
- golergka 8y ago
  It will reduce their motivation to keep paying taxes in this particular country.
nathias 8y ago
Why would anyone be happy with the money they have in a world where the next day your fortune may change and you lose it all? Capital is a self-hosted safety net.
ggm 8y ago
If you judge worth by others, you can be in trouble. If you judge worth by impact, what others get can be hugely significant. Somewhere between the two is a movable balance point where what people say influences how you believe they are impacted. This works for people making huge donations, people of less financial worth donating their time and work, but alas also justifies the Kardashians who perceive impact somewhat differently.
brazzy 8y ago
> Where did Norton find his rich people? For that particular study, an investment bank connected him with some of its high-net-worth clients. But Norton also told me that he had previously consulted with a pool of Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions Sounds like that would impose a pretty hefty sampling bias. I'm fairly sure there is a large pool of people who are very quite and quite happy with the money they have, enabling them to focus on doing things they love. But such people probably won't show up in this survey.
- hudibras 8y ago
  >Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions The researchers didn't tell them what the questions were about ahead of time.
  - hycaria 8y ago
    And ? Maybe people prone to answering a survey from researchers have other behavioral similarities and thus make the sampling is biased.
jondubois 8y ago
Interesting how most of the activities listed were related to meeting high-status people. I guess this is probably the attitude that made them billionaire in the first place.
nathan_f77 8y ago
> feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group I guess the solution is to not hang out with other rich people, don't move to a wealthy neighborhood, and just don't care about your social status. "Ignorance is bliss". I would be very happy if I had $200k in passive/investment income. That would be a SaaS company worth ~$1.5M, or ~$6M invested in index funds. If I ever get there, I hope I can resist the temptation to just keep going and waste my life trying to make more and more money. I just want a small house, unlimited free time, and no responsibilities. Then I'd like to spend time on hobbies, non-profit work, and maybe start new companies to solve problems (but not for the money.) There must be lots of people on HN who are multi-millionaires from startup exits. Did you notice a change in yourself, and you started to want more money?
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  In the UK it's been common advice to buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood. Perhaps it should be the other way round for your wellbeing.
lordnacho 8y ago
Perhaps it's just me but the article makes it look like rich people only ever hang out with other rich people. Hang out with people who aren't rich and you'll notice they're just as happy as everyone else. I happened to grow up with classmates whose parents were both billionaires and cab drivers. There's research that suggests beyond a certain threshold you won't get happier from any extra money and that certainly seemed to be the case.
themusicgod1 8y ago
Well, for starters, volatility. I know, very well, know how quickly this pile of cash can evaporate. To keep from starving again I'd rather have a significant (like orders of magnitude at this point) chunk dedicated to buffering me from that outcome. I do not trust the market to remain stable - I will go out and make more. I've lost fortunes some of you youngins can only dream of, but came out OK because I was not content to sit on my laurels.
Shivetya 8y ago
so being successful drives people to continue trying to be successful or even more so? it is a personality which works at many levels but I guess it is more interesting when applied to the really really rich. I have never known a rich person who wasn't always trying to do more. however I have had and still do have some acquaintances who go out of their way to not have money
known 8y ago
Missing self-actualization in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
goodcanadian 8y ago
Sorry, no citation, but I remember reading of a study years ago that basically determined that no matter how much income a person has, they feel that they need about 10% more to be truly happy. This was consistent across a wide range of income. Honestly, I think it is simply normal human psychology to keep us striving. Complacency is not an evolutionary stable thing to do.
2sk21 8y ago
No matter how much money I acquire, it will not help me to understand a mathematical theorem or become a master craftsman. Real wealth is what's inside you.
tw1010 8y ago
Hedonic treadmill
ThomPete 8y ago
A rich man is just a poor man with a lot of money. The biggest drug with having money is the opportunities that come with it. Financial freedom is freedom to chose what you want to do with your life and who you want to do it with. That's one half of the drug. That your days suddenly can look like one long adventure without too much repetition besides what you choose. The apple in paradise is that other people have more than you and thus you start comparing to richer people and make that the new standard. Finding the balance between enjoying what you have and wanting more is such a fundamental struggle in humans and start with the poor person without the money.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- snarf21 8y ago
  Right, all money ever buys you is time. The big problem most people have is that they are miserable money or not. The best advice is to find something to be involved in, find a hobby to master, find a cause to support. There is such power in a supportive community of similarly focused people working for the same end.
amriksohata 8y ago
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures TEXTS 13-15 The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him; and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice." In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance. Purport: The demoniac man knows no limit to his desire to acquire money. That is unlimited. He only thinks how much assessment he has just now and schemes to engage that stock of wealth farther and farther. For that reason, he does not hesitate to act in any sinful way and so deals in the black market for illegal gratification. He is enamoured by the possessions he has already, such as land, family, house and bank balance, and he is always planning to improve them. He believes in his own strength, and he does not know that whatever he is gaining is due to his past good deeds. He is given an opportunity to accumulate such things, but he has no conception of past causes. He simply thinks that all his mass of wealth is due to his own endeavor. A demoniac person believes in the strength of his personal work, not in the law of karma. According to the law of karma, a man takes his birth in a high family, or becomes rich, or very well educated, or very beautiful because of good work in the past. The demoniac thinks that all these things are accidental and due to the strength of his personal ability. He does not sense any arrangement behind all the varieties of people, beauty, and education. Anyone who comes into competition with such a demoniac man is his enemy. There are many demoniac people, and each is enemy to the others. This enmity becomes more and more deep-between persons, then between families, then between societies, and at last between nations. Therefore there is constant strife, war and enmity all over the world.
fallingfrog 8y ago
There’s no possible way that anybody could save up more than maybe a million dollars based on their own personal labor. Anything more than that is some form of legal theft. There’s no reason we can’t restructure society so that ownership and decision making is pushed down to a democratic level; it would solve almost all the current problems we face.
scarface74 8y ago
Another perspective outside of the SV bubble. I grew up in a typical middle class home - mother a teacher, father a factory worker. Because of $reasons I really didn’t focus on my career until my mid 30s. I bought a house in my late 20s in a new (statistically) middle class neighborhood. All of the houses around the area and all of my friends were middle class. Some houses slightly bigger, some cars slightly better but no serious differences. Then I got married and had (step)children who were use to going to school in the more affluent part of town. When I was single, I really didn’t think about the school system. I was making more by then and we moved to the more affluent part of town. While we were on the bottom of the top quintile by income, since by definition the top quintile is boundless, there is a much wider disparity in income between the 80 percentile and the 95 percentile. I was exposed to the lifestyle of people with a lot more money than I have. I have a much nicer house (relatively - its nothing extravagant), in a better part of town, making twice as much as I was but I actually feel poorer even though my income is more than double what it was 10 years ago and I’m much more comfortable now. We are not at all “rich” but as a software developer/architect with a working spouse, our household income is more than 80% of households - again not bragging, almost any experienced developer working in a major metropolitan area would be in the same boat.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  I've had the experience of thinking I'm doing well and then getting exposed to another level of "well". Here in Tokyo, at least before 2008 but I think still, there were lots of "expats". In my vocabulary, "expats" has a different meaning than just "someone from another country". It specifically means someone sent to a foreign country and "set up". A good example might be not only do they make $300k to $1million a year but their company, trying to reproduce their lifestyle back home in order to compensate them for asking them to move abroad ends up renting them an extremely nice place, usually in the $4000 to $8000 a month range and paying the rent for them. There was an English language magazine who's ads targeted these "expats" showing the apartments in that range and other service far far far out of reach of anything I was making. So in that sense I felt more like a failure. That said I don't believe I'd always want more if I had 10x what I had now. What I have now is not enough to stop needing an income. 10x is enough to stop and then just do what I want without having to worry that I'd better have a real job saving for when no one will hire me.
segmondy 8y ago
This is a stupid article, it's like making a case that an author is not happy with their past works because they keep writing even after having a best seller. Or that a director is not happy with their movie after having a blockbuster and winning top industry awards because they keep creating.
- tk75x 8y ago
  Your analogy is wrong. If you were to translate what the author of this article said onto your author/director comparison, the author would keep writing books because others have written more/better books than him and so would the director keep making films in order to elevate their relative status. The reason for always wanting more money isn't for the self-satisfaction that creative types feel when they produce a work, but to elevate your status above that of those around you.
dandare 8y ago
I read somewhere that net worth of $1 million is not enough to send two kids to Ivy League schools. There are many ways $10M will revolutionize your life compared to $1M.
tokyodude 8y ago
The article said they interviewed people with at least $1 million net worth but $1 million net worth isn't really rich is it? In SF you might be able to afford a 1 bedroom studio apartment. I'm guessing the same is true in NYC, London, much of Los Angeles, Tokyo. Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want. I guess that'S my definition of rich. It would basically be, can I afford to have say a 3-4 bedroom apartment or house for a family of 4, be able to travel 2 or 3 times a year, and not have to go to work for someone else if I don't want to. I'm not saying want to do nothing. I am saying to me "rich" equals enough money to have no more income for the rest of your life and still live like you're making enough to support a family of 4 without having to pinch pennies. I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries.
- aembleton 8y ago
  $1 million isn't enough to stop working for someone else if you're in a first tier city like NYC or London, but if you move out to a cheaper part of the country then you can. You might not have an extravagant lifestyle, but you can certainly live on the interest and returns on investment.
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  >Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want. . >I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries. The average HOUSEHOLD income in the US is around 59k. 1 million is about 300k more than I need to retire today at 33 with a 3% safe withdrawal rate assuming I never work another day in my life and never marry. I only gross 34k a year.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    So, in other words, it's not enough to meet GPs threshold of not work for anybody and support a family of four. It's enough (by your description) to not work for anybody and support a family of 1 (at a level a little over to the US current median individual income.)
tabtab 8y ago
The process of evolution doesn't reward long-term "satisfaction" and essentially makes animals "greedy". Sure, after a good meal or romance one may feel temporarily satisfied, but in a day or two you are back for more. Generally digestion is more efficient if the body is not moving fast or bumpy, so a feeling of satisfaction will tend to make animals rest after a big meal.
foo64467bar 8y ago
Nonsense. You were producing shit people enjoyed reading, how is a number indicating this not a measure of your value to others?
Tsubasachan 8y ago
I have been to third world countries, seen the slums and underage girls walk around at 4 in the morning outside bars. And yet when I land at AMS I immediately go back into first world mode. Waiting for luggage? Miss the shuttle bus for the parking? Literally rape.
theshadowknows 8y ago
I can see there being some weird stuff that can happen. Say the Hilton girls or Bill Gates or anyone who is exceptionally wealthy. Eventually you realize there’s nothing that can be bought that you can’t have. And nothing with a price that you can’t do. I guess that’s why some of them decide to go to space. It’s a huge thrill ride. In my case, my wife and I struggled a lot. Both from low income families. We struggled through college. I struggled in freelancing and consulting with clients that didn’t pay or paid very late. She has and continues to struggle with mystery health issues. But we always had each other, and we make each other happy. Once my salary cracked over 100k/yr it gave us a lot of breathing room. We’re less stressed. We can actually enjoy life. We both smile more. But we’re both still relatively new to it. I’m sure once your net worth is in the hundreds of millions or billions then there’s so little to worry about that life can get boring.
ralphc 8y ago
I think this helps explain a question I've had for a long time, from reading articles and from listening to second-hand stories from my CPA wife. The question is "Why don't rich people just pay their damn bills?" I mean they quibble and fight over $7000, which most can find in their couch cushions. It means that they get behind in their game. Never mind it's not a game to the contractors and drywall installers and plumbers they're screwing over.
honestoHeminway 8y ago
Its a circular worldview, with elements of competition. That can be found in any fitness-center. Why do you build your body? > Because i want to be the best version of myself. Why do you want to be the best version? > So all the other gymn-members can see. Why do all the other gym-members need to see? > Because they are building that body too. Its really sort of depressing. People with all that potential to do interesting things, and most are stuck in the circular thought that got them there.

316 points by gscott 8y ago

Seems like a rather superficial discussion of possible motivations for the behavior of the most greedy among us. Articles like this may sell magazine subscriptions but they don't teach us much that is useful.

hprotagonist 8y ago

I’m immediately reminded of the denouement of “This is Water”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PhhC_N6Bm_s . It’s become/ perhaps always has been a little trite or on the nose, but it’s also not wrong. If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

rabidrat 8y ago
Really insightful, thank you. I'm struck by this: > Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. which suggests that Imposter Syndrome is a result of "worshipping" intellect, particularly our own individual intelligence. We spend many days judging interview candidates for their intelligence (even when it is not clear that anything more than adequate intelligence is needed for quality, lasting work), and then wonder why we are so afraid that we feel like imposters.
- Taylor_OD 8y ago
  Oof. I listen to this essay regularly but this part has never stuck out to me in particular before.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I think imposter syndrome is something completely different - a result of answers begetting more unanswerable questions and the "hard" not feeling significant anymore. Thus it becomes "Anyone who can do N dimensional vector calculus can do what I do but I can't even come up with a way to unify physics or prove or disprove P = NP, I'm a failure and a fraud." Even though there are say only 5 people in the world capable of rederiving his work in a year. The runaway progression is the same however. That happens in some cases with eating disorders - even when ribs are showing and they weigh under 100lbs they are convinced they are fat.
monkeydreams 8y ago
Trite, but not untrue.
slededit 8y ago
It’s a nice thought, and gives a sense the world is fair. But it doesn’t ring true to me. Some people are hot, and they know it. They do not feel ugly. Ditto for intelligence.
- bo1024 8y ago

agumonkey 8y ago

I read "health" .. this article was confusing at first. Wealthy people are as unbalanced as poor people, good to know. I believe that a good group (friends/village) can tame that. You stop caring about your posession when you care for the group and its joy fulfills you.

tryptophan 8y ago

One comment I read somewhere is that with increasing wealth you lose the ability to make sense of the numbers anymore. What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense? The fear of losing it all, however, stays the same no matter the amount, and so the urge to keep accumulating doesn't go away despite a rational view that would recognize that 100million is more than enough.

naasking 8y ago
> What is the difference between 50 and 100 million in an emotional sense? It's roughly the difference between being able to own a private jet. There's probably always something spurring one on to the next level if you let it.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Seriously. Octopus cost $200 million. Anyone who wants her is going to have to be a billionaire. There's always something out there you can't have till you're mega-rich.
mywittyname 8y ago
I bet wealth liquidity scales super-linearly with net worth. A $50-millionaire likely has maybe $500k in cash, $2-5MM in liquid investments, and another $2-5MM in semi-liquid assets, like real-estate. While a $100-millionaire probably has like $2MM in cash, $10-20MM in liquid investments, and $10MM in real-estate. Because of this, the amount these two can borrow is staggeringly different.

skookumchuck 8y ago

Some people enjoy making money. It shouldn't be a surprise that very rich people got that way because they enjoy making money - and why should they stop?

Wh1skey 8y ago
The reason I enjoy making money is because I think of it as creating value for others. For some reason, I just enjoy creating value for others.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  In a free market, money is made by creating value for others.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    ...or by owning the means that other people use to provide value.

8bitsrule 8y ago

I'll buy this picture. Feelings of insecurity created by someone (anyone) who has more than you fits in with 'keeping up with the Joneses'. Further reasoning about irrational behavior is as unconvincing as science trying to explain magic. (Which in many cases might be helpful in explaining the long chains of coincidence that led to wealth, despite the often-fragile egos involved.) Some of the very rich try to invest in philanthropic causes. Studying the magnates of a century ago can be helpful. (E.g. the story of T. B. Walker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker ) On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn (not unprecedented in history).

ghufran_syed 8y ago
"On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn" That view seems inconsistent with this: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-...
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  There are 2,200+ billionaires in the world. 14 is a blip.

RickJWagner 8y ago

I'm a regular participant on 'Bogleheads' forum. If forum posters are to believed, there are quite a few high net-worth individuals there. Many are motivated by 'the game'. But I am not depressed by this. On the contrary, it seems to me that most take care to use their money in constructive ways. They seek to find ways to build better futures for those that will follow them. Some even pledge to give a bunch of it away, after the great examples set by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. There are some bad apples, probably, but I think there are a lot more good ones.

topmonk 8y ago
Whether they are good people or not really depends on what they would do to make their money, rather than how they would spend it. The lengths one would go to to become rich rather then where a rich person throws the breadcrumbs of what they already have truly defines them, and also, what evil may be created in this world.

Tade0 8y ago

Wasn't it really about power from the get go? Money is a pretty straightforward proxy for power and power(over people) is always relative. To me it all plays out in a much weirder manner among common people in countries that experienced rapid growth. Before my eyes my environment went from that of brutal poverty to - sometimes very uneven - prosperity.

spunker540 8y ago
That’s what Nietzche argues is humankind’s ultimate drive — https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power

bunderbunder 8y ago

The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser is a good read. It's a popular work that goes through a lot of research on how focusing on material definitions of success can ultimately run counter to your emotional well-being. The pleasure of a big new acquisition is fleeing, so you get stuck forever chasing bigger and better highs.

daxfohl 8y ago

I disagree. I think the primary motivation is you can always lose it all, or at least a lot of it. No matter how much you have or where you put it. The more you have, the more you stand to lose, especially due to macroeconomic shifts beyond your control, hyperinflation, war, etc. That's why what you have is never enough and seems like 3x (twice as rich, plus 1/3 as a backup) would be.

everdev 8y ago
Yes, or even the fear of dropping a status or income level can be enough motivation for some.

lisper 8y ago

A while back I noticed that my HN karma was rising at a rate that would put me on the leaderboard, so I decided to make an effort to submit content and post quality comments just to see if I could crack the top 100. After a few months I did it, and kept rising up to a high of 85 (today I'm #88). Then I realized I was spending way too much time on HN, and how easy it was to fall into this trap of thinking I was doing something worthwhile just because people were upvoting me. There is something visceral about looking at a number that you have somehow convinced yourself is a measure of your value as a human being, and seeing that number get bigger, even if at the end of the day that number is utterly meaningless. And, of course, when it comes to money the number is not meaningless, which makes the effect that much more powerful. BTW, money is not just good for buying material things. You can spend arbitrary amounts of money on philanthropy and political donations. Once you start to do that, a lot of people start to want to be your friend. That kind of attention and deference can also be a very powerful drug.

cyberferret 8y ago
Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. I stopped tracking my own karma score a while back. I was getting upset by even a handful of downvotes, and as soon as I decided to just publish my thoughts without caring about down (or up) votes, my happiness went up quite a few notches.
- lisper 8y ago
  > Did not even realise there was a leaderboard for HN karma. It's a well kept secret. And I've been much happier since I stopped looking at it, but every now and then I fall off the wagon and sneak a peek.
  - cyberferret 8y ago
    Well, I implore you to do us all a favour and NOT publish the link to the leaderboard... :)
    - 8y ago

cyberferret 8y ago

But isn't it the well oiled marketing and advertising industry that is keeping us constantly unhappy and forcing us to compare our own (projected) shortcomings against others? My hypothesis is that wealthier people are even deeper in this trap, as once you can afford nice clothes, accessories, cars, houses etc., you are immediately exposed to others in the same (or higher) wealth bracket, thus exacerbating these feelings of comparison and inadequacy. It is a self destructive feeding frenzy that can never assuage itself.

Declanomous 8y ago
I think this is partly why "old money" isn't flashy like nouveau rich money. It's easier to blow a fortune than it is to make a fortune.
combatentropy 8y ago
It is not advertisers who are all to blame. Pride and envy predate magazines and TV.
- dagw 8y ago
  Pride and envy predate magazines and TV. So does advertising.
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  So does cholera. But if you spend your work time trying to spread cholera you get a bit of blame.
rgbrenner 8y ago
It isn't the marketing and advertising industry. Greed, Pride, Lust, Envy, Gluttony - 5 of the 7 deadly sins.. Aristotle might not have reduced it to such a short list, but he wrote plenty on similar ideas. So there's 2300 years on paper... It's really human nature.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Yes but the marketing industry fans the flames. Edward Bernays has a lot to answer for.

sytelus 8y ago

TLDR; Michael Norton did the survey of people with networth > $1M and most said they need 2 or 3 times more. People with networth > $100M also don't feel satisfied because they tend to answer the question "Am I better off than last year?" by comparing to other folks who did even better than them. It looks to me that if you are in $3M to $10M bucket, you have financial freedom to live low key upper-middle class life. This is what Tim Ferris refers to as "New Rich". However when you are above $10M, something else happens. While you have financial freedom, you are also just starting to taste freedom of will. Sooner or later it might get annoying that you must wake up at 5 AM because that's the only flight available OR that you can't get the penthouse suit because someone more wealthier decided to book it out for entire year. You still depend on publicly available utilities fiercely competed upon. Unlike your peers with $100M you can't own GulfStreams or have $25M Malibu mentions overlooking Pacific with infinity pools. When you get to $100M, things change again. Now you do have little gulfstream but it's far cry from private 747 with king size bedroom, office, bar and a chef. Sure, you got that mention in Malibu but that large paradise estate in Hawaii with its own beach and waterfalls is out of your reach. When you meet your billionaire friends in blue waters of Greek island of Creet, your little yatch looks like baby's first toy missing things like its own sub and helipad. Life is good but not that good because resources at your disposal have still limitations to achieve maximum possible freedom of will. People tell you how awesome you are but you keep finding new limiting ways you are restricted to act by your will every single day. I think its only above $3B that you are in realm of pure score keeping, the quality of material possessions cannot be improved further and freedom of will is pretty much maximized. Now you are truly limited by time, and much less by ideas. So until you get in to that top 1000 individuals, it's going to sting one way or another.

scottlegrand2 8y ago
This is very similar with what I tell people: that every time you put another zero on your net worth, your world changes. The follow-up is that you probably shouldn't be taking life advice for your immediate situation from people who are more than one zero in either direction away from you because they're giving advice for their world, not yours. my personal financial life goal is never to be worth more than $10M and I am knocking that go a lot of the park right now! Life after $10M, from knowing people with that kind of money, just gets more and more complicated and no one seems truly happy, as they drown in first world problems.

dba7dba 8y ago

I think some rich people are not into making more money to be happirr but just to have more than the guy next to him.

dba7dba 8y ago

I don't think a lot of rich are into making more money to be happier. But rather to have more than the guy next to him. It's treated more like a game.

unforeseen9991 8y ago
That is literally what the article is all about

dovvdkc 8y ago

“For one study, Norton and his collaborator paid each respondent about 46 euros for every completed questionnaire. “You can run a survey on regular people for like a dollar,” “ Hmm I refused to give my email to a cable provider for a $100 Best Buy gift card (I was in Best Buy). At the time I thought who would trade their email address for a lousy $100? Now I know.

kaybe 8y ago
Do you only have one email adress? I wouldn't give out the main one, but some of the others.. or just make a new account somewhere and forward it to your main, then delete it if it ever collects spam.
- dovvdkc 8y ago
  I don’t like to give out my fake one either. Wouldn’t want my porn spam to get diluted by COMCAST offers. Actually you could learn a lot about me and who I am by cross referencing all the places i’ve given my fake address to. Since I don’t want to create a thousand fake addresses, I don’t give that out either for a mere $100
  - kaybe 8y ago
    I see, though $100 is not that little.. I like mailhero (mailhero.io) where you can give out unique email adresses (free, but maybe better not for important stuff) but of course it is not very hard to trace. (It works like this: You have one identifier (eg smith) and then add anythingn before the dot, like company.smith@mailhero.io), so the identifier is the same in all cases.)

danharaj 8y ago

The bourgeoisie have false consciousness too.

antognini 8y ago

There was a well written comment on Reddit a few years back about how your life changes at different levels of wealth: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i... The main gist was that in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again. In the $30-100 million range you can start doing "rich people" things like have a private jet (though this might be a stretch at the low end), have multiple residences in expensive parts around the globe, have personal staff, etc. After that level of wealth, more money doesn't really get you material things anymore, so much as influence and access to other important people.

10122018 8y ago
> in the $10-30 million range you can live a comfortable life without having to worry about finances again This statement strikes me as very disconnected from the reality that the vast majority of people on this planet live in, and honestly, a little bit irritating. I'm well aware that many here on HN would be millionaires, but as somebody who grew up in poverty and is now a full-time uni student with no savings in the bank, and no safety net, I wouldn't describe my life as comfortable, but I'm not starving or sleeping on a park bench either. My largest expenses are rent, food and medical expenses. If somebody were to give me a hundred thousand dollars to invest, I am quite certain I could live comfortably for the rest of my life. I'd never own a Ferrari, but why would I need to? In other words, I think your comment reflects the very problem that the posted article is discussing. To me, the idea of needing $10 million to be comfortable and not have to worry about finances seems absurd. Unless your idea of a comfortable life involves owning a luxury car, or renting a $2,000 a night suite. I live on what many here would consider to be an extremely low income, and the only thing I feel I'm really missing out on is desperately needed dental work, and even that would be measured in thousands of dollars, not millions. I apologise if my comment sounds harsh or impolite. It is not intended to be. I'm just amazed that anybody would think they need $10 million to be comfortable.
- MuffinFlavored 8y ago
  > I'd never own a Ferrari, but why would I need to? Because you were raised poor, you still are poor, so your views on life do not revolve around one of the finest and most exclusive automobiles money can buy. You've never been in a position to be even remotely close to owning a Ferrari, so your brain has ignored the value they offer. Yes. Driving a high speed status symbol can be rewarding. It can start conversations. It can get you access to groups of people who would never have looked at you before. Is it easy to write them all off on the premise of "if they wouldn't talk to me when I had a Honda, then they are vain and I don't want to talk to them?" Sure. But you'd be missing out on potentially meaningful connections. On top of that, hearing a visceral exhaust note while rapidly accelerating is adrenaline inducing. Does it get boring after 10,000 hours? Probably. But, what doesn't in life? The same way a trust fund child never views owning a dump or being in debt. It just isn't in your payscale/range, so why waste the brain cycles?

pmoriarty 8y ago

Some thoughts from Seneca: "Let me share with you the saying which pleased me to-day. It, too, is culled from another man's Garden: "Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth." Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature's needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich."[1] "Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough."[2] "I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him."[3] [1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_4 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let... [2] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_2 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let... [3] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_1 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...

rolleiflex 8y ago
One of my favourite philosophers and one I try to follow the most, but the unacquainted reader should be made aware before reading his commendations of poverty that Lucius Annaeus Seneca was the richest man in the Roman Empire.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  Thank you. I’ll pass on reading The Bill Gates Guide to Being Poor and Happy About It too :)

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Nasrudith 8y ago

I had always assumed it was a matter of self-perpetuation given what I have seen at lower levels with thriftiness and it holding despite being amply able to afford it. Those who are in habits of saving and investing money will keep on doing as an end to itself well past the actual needs. The biggest score cards show a bit of priorities. Many wealthy industrialists eventually turn to charities despite being ruthless out of concern for legacy,spirituality, or a sense of noblise oblige. I would like to think that if I got 'buying additional mansions doesn't make a dent' - obscenely wealthy I'd start funding major biotech research projects both to do good and because lifespan is the limit anyway. That is something that I've found a bit odd about the megarich - that we don't see more throwing their fortunes away at biotech research given lifespan is a limit far beyond - and most don't plan on giving full fortunes to their heirs anyway.

seibelj 8y ago

The more money and assets I accumulate, the safer I feel. This is one driver that will likely prevent me from retiring early - the fear of destitution.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
The "one more year" problem, I'll just work one more year to top up my funds. In reality I suspect most people have the decision forced on them either by their employer, the jobs market or health problems.
michael_leachim 8y ago
That feeling is false. No one is safe from sudden illness and death of themselves and their loved ones. Access to medicine can help, but it is not going to eliminate the problem.

kamaal 8y ago

Mostly because money has nothing to be with being happy, sad, healthy, immunity from disease, depression, or death. The utility of money is to make you comfortable, give your freedom, and take of other things while you suffer though life. Money or wealth should never be conceived as a hammer to down all nails.

sjg007 8y ago

It's not about the money.

scotty79 8y ago

I think it's possible that some people became rich because they were not satisfied with money they had. They are just still unhappy with money they have because nothing changed about their happiness and their sources, they just got more money.

salawat 8y ago

I don't know about anyone else, but in the case I were hypothetically independently wealthy, I'd still be miserable based on the fact that the system was still stuck in a mode where doing something I'd done would be required. I don't believe "play or starve" economics are the be all, end all of human existence, but I'll be damned if I can figure out a way to make it work without just about everyone else being willing to "come along for the ride" as it were.

IllusoryReverb 8y ago

I have had the sense that guilt plays a part in dissatisfaction with wealth, whether consciously or subconsciously. The way the economic system is set up, a person can only have money, wealth at the expense of others. I only have what I have because someone else has been deprived of it. Its difficult to enjoy something when at the back of ones mind, it is earned off the suffering (real or imagined) of others. I came to this conclusion one night whilst walking along the street some time back. I wanted to buy myself a packet of fries. Not far from the door of chips shop, there was a woman there with three children, laying down cardboard preparing to sleep for the night. The sense of what turned out to be guilt and shame that came upon me was palpable. It actually hit me that I could casually walk in and buy myself something I didn't really need whilst here was a woman with three kids sleeping on the street with nothing. Investigating my feelings further brought about I had so much compared to them. And what I had was not enough to make a real difference in their lives. Further investigation and thought brought about the idea that this might be the same not just for me, but for all people, getting progressively worse the higher up the wealth steps you go. The basic idea being that as currently set up, economics means that it is a zero sum game. In terms of money, either I have the 100 dollars or you have 100 dollars, we cannot both have the same 100 dollars. This means, (and I am open to being corrected) that what I have is at the expense of another - my boss, my brother who is having a hard time making ends meet, or all the others who have to walk kilometres to get to work to save on money used in public transport. My take away and current struggle is that at some point, in order to just live, we have to find a way to deal with this feeling of guilt - which in my case, took on the form of first denying responsibility and assigning blame on others (government & other institutions, parenting, poor decision making, lack of intelligence etc), or just ignoring it because 'there is nothing I can do' about it because 'I also have problems and I dont have enough to make a meaningful difference'. I still don’t have a good answer to this. Thats my 2 cents.

badpun 8y ago
> I only have what I have because someone else has been deprived of it. This is clearly incorrect. If you made something and now own it, the thing did not exist until you made it - hence no one could have been deprived of it.

skybrian 8y ago

The paper is at [1]. It's by no means a random sample. (That would be pretty difficult.) I wonder what you'd have to do to find the people who say "enough is enough?" It seems they're not customers of this firm. [1] https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=53540

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golergka 8y ago

There is a critical component in such motivation that is not even mentioned in this article. The more money you have, the more ability you have to change the world around you. Among many, many financially successful people I know, there are a LOT who are motivated by money and competitiveness themselves. However, NONE of them are founders of new businesses. (Real new businesses, that intend to stay in the picture and actually do something for the customers, instead of ending up acquihired or otherwise melted back into some comfortable corporate structure. Most of tech start-ups are really far from this image, and are created people who know exactly what their exit strategy is). These founders are always motivated by their desire to change something in the world: they love the field they're working in, and they love the product they're creating, and they wouldn't miss it for the world. And yes, they want more money, because it's the universal resource out of which they build the things they so love building. So, in other words, the headline of this article should have been "Why Aren't New York Finance Executives And Other Thin Subset of Rich People We Got A Hold Of Happy With The Money They Have".

bisRepetita 8y ago

>“The sensation of ‘being well-off,’” [...] “is not about fulfilling a childhood dream of buying a sailboat or something; feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group When there is a debate about increasing % of taxes further for higher income (often in the name of redistribution, reducing inequalities), I often hear the argument that it will reduce the motivation for the higher income people to keep working and keep contributing to society. I think the argument is wrong: it's a social game, and if the same rules apply to all, they all can keep playing the same game with the same motivation of outdoing their peers.

hueving 8y ago
Rich peoples' reference group isn't limited to a single country though. There is no way we can apply the same rules to all, unless there is a new global order I haven't heard of. See: the disaster of the US yatch manufacturing tax
golergka 8y ago
It will reduce their motivation to keep paying taxes in this particular country.

nathias 8y ago

Why would anyone be happy with the money they have in a world where the next day your fortune may change and you lose it all? Capital is a self-hosted safety net.

ggm 8y ago

If you judge worth by others, you can be in trouble. If you judge worth by impact, what others get can be hugely significant. Somewhere between the two is a movable balance point where what people say influences how you believe they are impacted. This works for people making huge donations, people of less financial worth donating their time and work, but alas also justifies the Kardashians who perceive impact somewhat differently.

brazzy 8y ago

> Where did Norton find his rich people? For that particular study, an investment bank connected him with some of its high-net-worth clients. But Norton also told me that he had previously consulted with a pool of Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions Sounds like that would impose a pretty hefty sampling bias. I'm fairly sure there is a large pool of people who are very quite and quite happy with the money they have, enabling them to focus on doing things they love. But such people probably won't show up in this survey.

hudibras 8y ago
>Dutch millionaires willing to respond to researchers’ questions The researchers didn't tell them what the questions were about ahead of time.
- hycaria 8y ago
  And ? Maybe people prone to answering a survey from researchers have other behavioral similarities and thus make the sampling is biased.

jondubois 8y ago

Interesting how most of the activities listed were related to meeting high-status people. I guess this is probably the attitude that made them billionaire in the first place.

nathan_f77 8y ago

> feeling wealthy is about comparison with others in your reference group I guess the solution is to not hang out with other rich people, don't move to a wealthy neighborhood, and just don't care about your social status. "Ignorance is bliss". I would be very happy if I had $200k in passive/investment income. That would be a SaaS company worth ~$1.5M, or ~$6M invested in index funds. If I ever get there, I hope I can resist the temptation to just keep going and waste my life trying to make more and more money. I just want a small house, unlimited free time, and no responsibilities. Then I'd like to spend time on hobbies, non-profit work, and maybe start new companies to solve problems (but not for the money.) There must be lots of people on HN who are multi-millionaires from startup exits. Did you notice a change in yourself, and you started to want more money?

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
In the UK it's been common advice to buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood. Perhaps it should be the other way round for your wellbeing.

lordnacho 8y ago

Perhaps it's just me but the article makes it look like rich people only ever hang out with other rich people. Hang out with people who aren't rich and you'll notice they're just as happy as everyone else. I happened to grow up with classmates whose parents were both billionaires and cab drivers. There's research that suggests beyond a certain threshold you won't get happier from any extra money and that certainly seemed to be the case.

themusicgod1 8y ago

Well, for starters, volatility. I know, very well, know how quickly this pile of cash can evaporate. To keep from starving again I'd rather have a significant (like orders of magnitude at this point) chunk dedicated to buffering me from that outcome. I do not trust the market to remain stable - I will go out and make more. I've lost fortunes some of you youngins can only dream of, but came out OK because I was not content to sit on my laurels.

Shivetya 8y ago

so being successful drives people to continue trying to be successful or even more so? it is a personality which works at many levels but I guess it is more interesting when applied to the really really rich. I have never known a rich person who wasn't always trying to do more. however I have had and still do have some acquaintances who go out of their way to not have money

known 8y ago

Missing self-actualization in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

goodcanadian 8y ago

Sorry, no citation, but I remember reading of a study years ago that basically determined that no matter how much income a person has, they feel that they need about 10% more to be truly happy. This was consistent across a wide range of income. Honestly, I think it is simply normal human psychology to keep us striving. Complacency is not an evolutionary stable thing to do.

2sk21 8y ago

No matter how much money I acquire, it will not help me to understand a mathematical theorem or become a master craftsman. Real wealth is what's inside you.

tw1010 8y ago

Hedonic treadmill

ThomPete 8y ago

A rich man is just a poor man with a lot of money. The biggest drug with having money is the opportunities that come with it. Financial freedom is freedom to chose what you want to do with your life and who you want to do it with. That's one half of the drug. That your days suddenly can look like one long adventure without too much repetition besides what you choose. The apple in paradise is that other people have more than you and thus you start comparing to richer people and make that the new standard. Finding the balance between enjoying what you have and wanting more is such a fundamental struggle in humans and start with the poor person without the money.

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snarf21 8y ago
Right, all money ever buys you is time. The big problem most people have is that they are miserable money or not. The best advice is to find something to be involved in, find a hobby to master, find a cause to support. There is such power in a supportive community of similarly focused people working for the same end.

amriksohata 8y ago

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures TEXTS 13-15 The demoniac person thinks: "So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him; and my other enemy will also be killed. I am the lord of everything, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice." In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance. Purport: The demoniac man knows no limit to his desire to acquire money. That is unlimited. He only thinks how much assessment he has just now and schemes to engage that stock of wealth farther and farther. For that reason, he does not hesitate to act in any sinful way and so deals in the black market for illegal gratification. He is enamoured by the possessions he has already, such as land, family, house and bank balance, and he is always planning to improve them. He believes in his own strength, and he does not know that whatever he is gaining is due to his past good deeds. He is given an opportunity to accumulate such things, but he has no conception of past causes. He simply thinks that all his mass of wealth is due to his own endeavor. A demoniac person believes in the strength of his personal work, not in the law of karma. According to the law of karma, a man takes his birth in a high family, or becomes rich, or very well educated, or very beautiful because of good work in the past. The demoniac thinks that all these things are accidental and due to the strength of his personal ability. He does not sense any arrangement behind all the varieties of people, beauty, and education. Anyone who comes into competition with such a demoniac man is his enemy. There are many demoniac people, and each is enemy to the others. This enmity becomes more and more deep-between persons, then between families, then between societies, and at last between nations. Therefore there is constant strife, war and enmity all over the world.

fallingfrog 8y ago

There’s no possible way that anybody could save up more than maybe a million dollars based on their own personal labor. Anything more than that is some form of legal theft. There’s no reason we can’t restructure society so that ownership and decision making is pushed down to a democratic level; it would solve almost all the current problems we face.

scarface74 8y ago

Another perspective outside of the SV bubble. I grew up in a typical middle class home - mother a teacher, father a factory worker. Because of $reasons I really didn’t focus on my career until my mid 30s. I bought a house in my late 20s in a new (statistically) middle class neighborhood. All of the houses around the area and all of my friends were middle class. Some houses slightly bigger, some cars slightly better but no serious differences. Then I got married and had (step)children who were use to going to school in the more affluent part of town. When I was single, I really didn’t think about the school system. I was making more by then and we moved to the more affluent part of town. While we were on the bottom of the top quintile by income, since by definition the top quintile is boundless, there is a much wider disparity in income between the 80 percentile and the 95 percentile. I was exposed to the lifestyle of people with a lot more money than I have. I have a much nicer house (relatively - its nothing extravagant), in a better part of town, making twice as much as I was but I actually feel poorer even though my income is more than double what it was 10 years ago and I’m much more comfortable now. We are not at all “rich” but as a software developer/architect with a working spouse, our household income is more than 80% of households - again not bragging, almost any experienced developer working in a major metropolitan area would be in the same boat.

tokyodude 8y ago
I've had the experience of thinking I'm doing well and then getting exposed to another level of "well". Here in Tokyo, at least before 2008 but I think still, there were lots of "expats". In my vocabulary, "expats" has a different meaning than just "someone from another country". It specifically means someone sent to a foreign country and "set up". A good example might be not only do they make $300k to $1million a year but their company, trying to reproduce their lifestyle back home in order to compensate them for asking them to move abroad ends up renting them an extremely nice place, usually in the $4000 to $8000 a month range and paying the rent for them. There was an English language magazine who's ads targeted these "expats" showing the apartments in that range and other service far far far out of reach of anything I was making. So in that sense I felt more like a failure. That said I don't believe I'd always want more if I had 10x what I had now. What I have now is not enough to stop needing an income. 10x is enough to stop and then just do what I want without having to worry that I'd better have a real job saving for when no one will hire me.

segmondy 8y ago

This is a stupid article, it's like making a case that an author is not happy with their past works because they keep writing even after having a best seller. Or that a director is not happy with their movie after having a blockbuster and winning top industry awards because they keep creating.

tk75x 8y ago
Your analogy is wrong. If you were to translate what the author of this article said onto your author/director comparison, the author would keep writing books because others have written more/better books than him and so would the director keep making films in order to elevate their relative status. The reason for always wanting more money isn't for the self-satisfaction that creative types feel when they produce a work, but to elevate your status above that of those around you.

dandare 8y ago

I read somewhere that net worth of $1 million is not enough to send two kids to Ivy League schools. There are many ways $10M will revolutionize your life compared to $1M.

tokyodude 8y ago

The article said they interviewed people with at least $1 million net worth but $1 million net worth isn't really rich is it? In SF you might be able to afford a 1 bedroom studio apartment. I'm guessing the same is true in NYC, London, much of Los Angeles, Tokyo. Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want. I guess that'S my definition of rich. It would basically be, can I afford to have say a 3-4 bedroom apartment or house for a family of 4, be able to travel 2 or 3 times a year, and not have to go to work for someone else if I don't want to. I'm not saying want to do nothing. I am saying to me "rich" equals enough money to have no more income for the rest of your life and still live like you're making enough to support a family of 4 without having to pinch pennies. I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries.

aembleton 8y ago
$1 million isn't enough to stop working for someone else if you're in a first tier city like NYC or London, but if you move out to a cheaper part of the country then you can. You might not have an extravagant lifestyle, but you can certainly live on the interest and returns on investment.
ryanmercer 8y ago
>Sure, with $1 million maybe you could retire in Cambodia but for most 1st world people $1 million is not enough be able to stop working for someone else and do what you want. . >I'm confident $1million is not even close enough to be able to do that in most 1st world countries. The average HOUSEHOLD income in the US is around 59k. 1 million is about 300k more than I need to retire today at 33 with a 3% safe withdrawal rate assuming I never work another day in my life and never marry. I only gross 34k a year.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  So, in other words, it's not enough to meet GPs threshold of not work for anybody and support a family of four. It's enough (by your description) to not work for anybody and support a family of 1 (at a level a little over to the US current median individual income.)

tabtab 8y ago

The process of evolution doesn't reward long-term "satisfaction" and essentially makes animals "greedy". Sure, after a good meal or romance one may feel temporarily satisfied, but in a day or two you are back for more. Generally digestion is more efficient if the body is not moving fast or bumpy, so a feeling of satisfaction will tend to make animals rest after a big meal.

foo64467bar 8y ago

Nonsense. You were producing shit people enjoyed reading, how is a number indicating this not a measure of your value to others?

Tsubasachan 8y ago

I have been to third world countries, seen the slums and underage girls walk around at 4 in the morning outside bars. And yet when I land at AMS I immediately go back into first world mode. Waiting for luggage? Miss the shuttle bus for the parking? Literally rape.

theshadowknows 8y ago

I can see there being some weird stuff that can happen. Say the Hilton girls or Bill Gates or anyone who is exceptionally wealthy. Eventually you realize there’s nothing that can be bought that you can’t have. And nothing with a price that you can’t do. I guess that’s why some of them decide to go to space. It’s a huge thrill ride. In my case, my wife and I struggled a lot. Both from low income families. We struggled through college. I struggled in freelancing and consulting with clients that didn’t pay or paid very late. She has and continues to struggle with mystery health issues. But we always had each other, and we make each other happy. Once my salary cracked over 100k/yr it gave us a lot of breathing room. We’re less stressed. We can actually enjoy life. We both smile more. But we’re both still relatively new to it. I’m sure once your net worth is in the hundreds of millions or billions then there’s so little to worry about that life can get boring.

ralphc 8y ago

I think this helps explain a question I've had for a long time, from reading articles and from listening to second-hand stories from my CPA wife. The question is "Why don't rich people just pay their damn bills?" I mean they quibble and fight over $7000, which most can find in their couch cushions. It means that they get behind in their game. Never mind it's not a game to the contractors and drywall installers and plumbers they're screwing over.

honestoHeminway 8y ago

Its a circular worldview, with elements of competition. That can be found in any fitness-center. Why do you build your body? > Because i want to be the best version of myself. Why do you want to be the best version? > So all the other gymn-members can see. Why do all the other gym-members need to see? > Because they are building that body too. Its really sort of depressing. People with all that potential to do interesting things, and most are stuck in the circular thought that got them there.