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America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

• ceohockey60 8y ago
  One of the best nuggets in this article, IMHO. "There’s no magic salary at which a bad job becomes good."
• throwaway-1283 8y ago
  Everything is much easier if you decide not to have kids.
• dshuang 8y ago
  https://outline.com/hS54Lp https://outline.com/hS54Lp
• towaway1138 8y ago
  > The upper echelon is hoarding money and privilege to a degree not seen in decades. Is this another way of saying they're being offered high salaries and taking them?
• pandeiro 8y ago
  So just imagine their kids...
• pkaler 8y ago
  >> He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like it's the wife that he needs to cut. Or he needs to do a better job of communicating his happiness to her. This is the type of marriage that ends up in divorce. I just finished re-reading Drive by Daniel Pink. My book notes here: https://parveenkaler.com/posts/drive-daniel-pink https://parveenkaler.com/posts/drive-daniel-pink Using Daniel Pink's model, the characters in this story seem to be lacking 1) Mastery 2) Autonomy 3) Purpose in their work.
• randomacct3847 8y ago
  I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year
  • StavrosK 8y ago
    I think this is a quintessentially American slash Protestant-work-ethicy sentence. Why is anyone surprised that people who work so much that they don't have a life, meaningful relationships to other people or a vibrant social circle are depressed? If you optimize for making lots of money, that's (hopefully? probably?) what you will achieve. But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become happy. If you want to be happy, make time for your friends, family, people important to you, and spend time on yourself and what you like doing. It's not complicated.
    • randomacct3847 8y ago
      The thing is I don’t think a lot of these people actually work that much. If you’re in a mid level engineering role at a FAANG you’re not usually working 50-60+ hour weeks. You’re actually probably underutilized and working on uninteresting tasks.
      • cat199 8y ago
        > But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become happy. still applies
    • C1sc0cat 8y ago
      Or stress at work maybe thats a big cause of depression
    • cat199 8y ago
      ... pay no attention to the post-enlightenment free-market liberal materialist bias behind the curtain
    • JohnFen 8y ago
• minikites 8y ago
  >“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than you.
  • piptastic 8y ago
    is it capitalism or the fundamental emptiness of life?
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Life isn't fundamentally empty. It's the philosophical underpinnings of profit-worship that make life seem empty.
      • ForHackernews 8y ago
        Life is fundamentally empty. Unless you're religious: you live for a while then you die. Maybe you successfully procreated, and your descendants live until something gets them too. Eventually climate change, or asteroids or supernova gets everyone left.
        • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
          I don't see how being temporary means that a thing lacks meaning.
          • ForHackernews 8y ago
            How could anything mean anything when pretty soon (in a cosmological sense) there won't be any such thing as a mind in which meaning could exist?
• throwanem 8y ago
  Relevant: https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/14/money-can-buy-happiness-but-only-to-a-point.html https://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/14/money-can-buy-happiness-but-...
• jokoon 8y ago
  I was just thinking about this in the bus. Most of the time, it's not really the fault of politics making us sway one way or another. It's also the routine and the whole we-ve-always-done-things-this-way. Society is not always really competent and organized in a way that brings improvement, but it's not really the fault of anyone, it's just civilization being too rigid by definition. It's a communication problem.
• strikelaserclaw 8y ago
  - He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k.
  • uptown 8y ago
    What world are they living in where startups are paying $500-$600k?
    • dilyevsky 8y ago
      If “startup” means “pre IPO” then there quite a few places in town that go up to this for very senior roles.
      • eclipxe 8y ago
        Uber, Lyft, AirBnb....500k+ for Sr & Manager roles.
      • nemo44x 8y ago
        I think a lot of people here don't realize how lucrative the sales roles in tech companies are - if you're good at it. Top sales reps often make more than than top level managers. I estimate the top sales people are the highest compensated people in a company. It is true meritocracy, however. You are judged on a single metric more or less and the bottom of the group is dismissed without second thought. You can make a great living on the engineer side of the operation and it's steady but you'll never see the highs of the top sales people even when you're at a point with stock and salary being many hundreds of thousands. It's not a life for me but I have nothing but respect for the effort, time and relationship building great sales people put in. It's a hard, competitive ladder but if you make it work you'll hit high 6 figures and at times 7 figures for many years.
    • 8y ago
• jdhn 8y ago
  So just now the NYTimes is finding out that money can't outright buy happiness?
  • hanniabu 8y ago
    It can most certainly buy happiness if money was the only issues. Many other issues are usually introduced such as being a workaholic and making yourself miserable, love issues, lack of wholesome friendships, etc.
    • that_jojo 8y ago
      "Money can buy happiness if money could buy happiness"
• Murdoch 8y ago
  The rich are depressed, the middle-class is shrinking and fearful, the poor are hopeless. I'm gonna take a leap here and say maybe people need some religion in their lives to give direction and meaning. I found it interesting that a person in the article who made $1.2M a year was still depressed in thinking they were wasting their lives and it was all meaningless. I ask myself, does this person have children? a family to leave wealth to? or children to teach values to? I'm sorry but we have become so weak in our desire to satisfy only our own goals. That person's duty is to his family, and children (if he has any). His duty to society is to raise children with values that are compatible with the society. Religion instills this virtue and gives framework of how our actions on earth and our ability to reason and create is an imitation of "god" aka creation of existence.
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I disagree about it being religion specifically, but I would say that people need a better philosophy, a model of reality, to understand why the things they think will make them happy don't.
    • toasterlovin 8y ago
      I think it's useful to divorce the concept Religion from the concept of God in your mind. IMO, the religions of the future will be God-less. If you look at the jobs that religions typically do, a lot of the ground is being covered by science (telling a story about how we came to exist and what our purpose is) and the rest is being covered by political ideologies (how we should live our lives and how we should relate to other people). Someone is going to figure out how to marry those two together someday...
      • vibrato 8y ago
        The religion of social justice based on marxist identity politics is alive and well.
      • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        I disagree about it being God-less per-se. I think people will come back around to a conception of God, not as an anthropomorphized magic sky wizard full of wrath and dogma, but as a philosophical concept that seems to underpin all of reality. And when that happens, they will look back at the religions of the past and find that they, in their own words, often spoke the same wisdom that will then be commonplace. We merely misunderstood it because we lacked the context see what what was really meant. Because the thing about context is that it is necessary for communication, and you don't get it for free.
• akavi 8y ago
  The article seems to be omitting an important piece of data: Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than people who make less? It implies by its framing that they're less happy, but that's not actually supported by any actual data in the piece (though to be fair, on cursory googling I wasn't able to find any evidence one way or another).
  • Fnoord 8y ago
    > Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than people who make less? This is already known though. Its a curve. People who live in poverty (local standards) are unhappy, and happiness increases a lot till they have more breathing space. I'm not sure what exactly is the magic border where this doesn't count anymore but say it is 60k a year (in USA, which is a bit odd because living expenses vary a lot but hear me out). After that ceiling, the happiness does not increase much anymore.
  • chiefalchemist 8y ago
    Agreed. This is a glorified op-ed piece / human interest story. It's not proper objective journalism. I mean, given all the complaints and struggles we read of at other class levels the headline could be: The Elite - Miserable and in Fear, Just Like the Rest of Us. And it's fear that drives greed. I mean, when you can't go from $1M to $500K that's fear of losing what you have; just like the rest of us.
  • acomjean 8y ago
    There is a link between money to happiness according to studies. The trick is that it stops after you have enough. Basically its terrible being poor, that will effect you happiness in a negative way. Once you have enough you are happier. But even more doesn't effect it that much. These things are hard to measure.
  • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I think it goes like this: You make $X. You'd like more, you see there are things that you could do with more money, and so you're kind of unhappy. But you don't get your hopes up for those things, because you only make $X, and there's no point. Now you make $(X + Y). Now some of those things become possible that you didn't dare let yourself dream about before. The problem is, you gained $Y in income, but the amount of things that became possible is 10 * $Y. You could do any one of the things that became possible, but you can't do all of them. So now they're realistic dreams, but you still can't do (most of) them. For many people, this makes them less happy then they were, because the gap between dreams and reality got wider, even though they actually can do at least one thing more than they could before.
• aglavine 8y ago
  At least in my country (Argentina) I think that at a personal level (indoor) we are all OK, the problem is at a social level (outdoor). I can think of several projects that would make me happy and 100% sure that they would improve my community as well. But I don't have time or wealth or mechanisms to deal with it. We are lacking community level organization, because it is really hard to do it well, without messing with corruption or ineptitude.
  • ttoinou 8y ago
    Interesting, what projects for example and how can you be so sure people would be interested ? I tend to think that one kinda needs to exchange (i.e. not just give everything away) with others in order for the "improvements" one is looking for gets validated / get real time feedback.
    • aglavine 8y ago
      As a clear example, We lack green areas in our cities by any measure. That's something that already have been done in many places and have 100% positive impact. You don't really need to innovate, just copy what have worked in other places.
• deleted 8y ago
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• arcaster 8y ago
  This title seems to amply describe most of the people I met while living in the Bay Area - both around the Peninsula (MTV ~ Los Altos) where I lived and in SF.
• malvosenior 8y ago
  The richest people I know are definitely also some of the most miserable. We've been sold a story that careers are a path to fulfillment, self actualization and empowerment. When in reality they are a soul sucking, near pointless burden that enriches investors, founders, execs and few others. I love what I do for a living and I make a very healthy amount doing it. That being said, I see stay at home parents and think they are the people actually living life to the fullest. It's extremely difficult being a parent but the rewards trump all the accolades and money in the world (imo). I think the 20th century screwed up our value system via marketing and mass media. People lost sight of where true fulfillment comes from and lost the ability to think in the long term and work hard to get there. Focusing on your career so you can travel internationally and buy mid-century modern furniture for your Brooklyn 1bd is pure hedonism and I think people are starting to wake up to that fact. It's worth watching the documentary The Century of the Self to see how some of this played out and was orchestrated by the media and marketers. It's very interesting and really shows you how developments in psychology and technology lead to corporations triggering hedonistic instincts to sell more product. It's a great watch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
  • stuxnet79 8y ago
    Century of the Self was a mind-blowing tour de force. Highly recommend. Completely transformed my views on capitalism and consumerism.
• joshuakcockrell 8y ago
  > We want to feel that we’re making the world better, even if it’s as small a matter as helping a shopper find the right product at the grocery store. My question for HN is do you feel that the content you are working on makes a difference in your career satisfaction? Or do you just need to know that _someone_ out there is being benefited? Is it just as fulfilling to work on a video game that flops (but maybe a few people still enjoy it) as it is to work on Fortnite where your code changes are used by millions? Is it more satisfying to work on consumer facing iPhone apps like Apple Fitness where you are enabling millions of people to be healthier compared to working on a high frequency trading algorithm that makes a few people lots of money?
  • entee 8y ago
    Speaking personally, the things that give me the greatest satisfaction are those where I feel I've done a good job from a perspective of craft. Even if the code itself doesn't do very much or will never really be seen, I get the greatest contentment from feeling I designed and put it together well. If I worked on a video game that didn't get traction but that I loved, was beautifully built and designed, I think I'd be happier than say, an online poker game. I'd be lying if I didn't care at all, obviously I'd rather the app be used. There's a special feeling of showing something to someone completely outside tech, saying "I built this" and having them "get" it. Hence why I think consumer apps are also more satisfying than a high frequency trading algo. EDIT: minor grammar/missing words
  • 52-6F-62 8y ago
    Good question. In my personal opinion it does. Without getting into specifics, I've been working recently on a project in which I will be proud of having had a large part to play. It will [potentially] indirectly reach hundreds of thousands to million(s) of people, depending. It is also in a field I have long believed in. I won't be working with it, or the field forever, but I am glad to have done so. There have been roles I've turned down that, while they may have provided value of some kind to somebody somewhere— I would personally find it rather empty. I've done those projects before. They're ephemeral (not that everything isn't, but I'm not being so extensive in scope...). Those things can depend on the nature of the work, or the people you meet in the process. Sometimes it can work out well, other times it can feel like oblivion for a time.
• nightski 8y ago
  I'd just like to add a thought - maybe happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be? I mean sure, we should strive to achieve a certain standard of living for everyone. But once you get to a certain point of "happiness", maybe it's the happiness itself which makes you miserable?
  • JohnFen 8y ago
    > I find I am at my best when things are not going perfectly and I am backed against a corner. I would suggest that such a situation makes you happy. Happiness does not imply the lack of struggle or difficulty. In fact, I think most people need struggle and difficulty in the mix in order to be happy.
    • nightski 8y ago
      That's fair and I do not disagree. But put another way - there is a large set of emotions out there of which happy is just a single member. But for some reason it is put on this pedestal as the holy grail. Maybe it's not? But I am getting pretty OT from the article so I apologize.
      • JohnFen 8y ago
        I agree. I think that generally when people are using the term "happy", they really mean "lack of misery". I think a better term in the context of this discussion is "satisfaction" over "happiness".
  • thisisweirdok 8y ago
    It's fleeting. What makes you happy today might feel miserable tomorrow. You need to recognize this and be willing to change. It's hard. Life is hard.
    • JohnFen 8y ago
      > What makes you happy today might feel miserable tomorrow. Not to get too philosophical, but I honestly don't think that things make people happy or unhappy. Happiness appears to be a choice. I say this based on my observation that I've known people who've lived in objectively awful circumstance, but were genuinely happy -- and I've known people who've lived in ideal circumstances, but were miserable.
• JohnFen 8y ago
  If the entire point of your work is to make money, your work is ultimately pointless. (Not saying making money isn't important, but that it's not good for you if that's the primary goal.)
• kevmo 8y ago
  Bullshit Jobs, a 2018 book by David Graeber, discusses this phenomenon pretty extensively and calls for more research. His rudimentary theory is that people who aren't contributing to society know that they aren't, and it makes them miserable. People have an inherent desire to change the world around them, and most professional jobs are actually mostly nonsense. This results in professionals being depressed and feeling hopeless. There was one study the book cited, "Taxation and the Allocation of Talent", which was particularly interesting. As it's abstract says: "Estimates from the literature suggest that high-paying professions have negative externalities, whereas low-paying professions have positive externalities."[1] As a successful lawyer who quit that profession and became a software engineer, writer, and startup founder, all of this really resonates with me. The book is an outgrowth of a 2013 essay that got re-printed 100s of times and spurred some polling.[2] I recommend at least reading the essay. It has a lot of implications for economics, business management, and various other fields. [1]https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693393 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693393 [2] "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant" http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
  • Wwhite 8y ago
    This article is like a watery, inoffensive version of Graeber for the author and his MBA classmates in the managerial class.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
• 11thEarlOfMar 8y ago
  "...an underlying sense that their work isn’t worth the grueling effort they’re putting into it." Just because you've become wealthy doesn't mean that you find meaning in your work. Or, conversely, non-wealthy people can also fall into this syndrome. There is certainly another population of people who started out and continued doing what they love and in the process became wealthy. It'd be interesting to identify and interview both groups and look for what makes the difference. For example, what about the Harvard MBAs who took control of a struggling company, turned it around and grew the workforce, putting more people to work and winning the allegiance of their customers. I'd guess that group would find much more meaning in that result than the bulk of the hedge fund group.
  • meowface 8y ago
    I think this is probably the biggest reason why people found startups: not money, but to actually work a fulfilling job they find real meaning in. Even if it fails, it's a lot more fun and interesting than being a cog in a machine trying to react to the fickle whims of 3-12 layers of managers.
• TomVDB 8y ago
  It makes me smile that the janitorial staff at some large hospital can be so satisfied with their job.
• QualityReboot 8y ago
  I just don't understand this at all. If you can earn a million a year, do it for 3-5 years, never have to work again, and pursue your passions in life. I think the problem for most workers is the lifetime of toil, not the meaninglessness of the work. I'd happily dig ditches for 8-12 hours a day for 3 years if I knew I was completely financially independent with millions in the bank that. Actually, I'd rather do that than write code. At least I'd be getting a workout. As it is now, I write proprietary software for much less than those featured in the article, work is miserable, and I've still got maybe 10-15 years to go. Am I in the minority here?
  • C1sc0cat 8y ago
    What % of that million are you spending
  • prewett 8y ago
    Meaninglessness creates the toil. It's not toil if it's meaningful, it's merely physical or stressful or whatever the hard part of the particular job entails.
  • fermentation 8y ago
    Seriously, it was hard to feel much sympathy for the person earning $1.2M/yr when they could very easily retire if they just stopped somehow spending hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
    • obastani 8y ago
      Perhaps they are earning $1.2M/yr because they never found anything they enjoyed to do with their time outside of work?
      • esturk 8y ago
        So the problem lies with said individual then.
  • eclipxe 8y ago
• graeme 8y ago
  Statistics about income not making people happy are common. I wonder how wealth/savings affects it. If the $1.2 million worker hadn't inflated his lifestyle, he'd be free to take any job he wanted, or even perform his own job the way he thought best, safe in the knowledge that he would be financially fine if let go. It seems that a lot of people who reach high incomes never maintain slack in their lives. As much as possible I've tried to keep expenses lower as my income grew. And to watch in advance what the big possible causes of such lifestyle inflation are: expensive real estate, expensive car, private school, large vacations or purchases made on debt with no plan to fund them, etc The janitor study cited here is interesting, but I wonder if they controlled for disposition. Cheery people may simply be good at finding meaning in what they do, no matter what they do. And the opposite. For instance, the fund manager could think "if I do my job well, I am allocating capital well and helping companies succeed and helping the economy grow faster than it otherwise would." I am sure that some content fund managers do think that. But is it merely dispositional, in the same way that not keeping your expenses low may be dispositional?
  • snarf21 8y ago
    Most things I have read previously showed that more money generally only makes people happier up to a certain point, somewhere around $80K. At this level it is possible (in most places) to not live paycheck to paycheck and have some savings and financial security. Above this level, nothing really changes except how expensive our things are. Find meaning in your hobby or in your volunteering or your exploration of nature, not your work or your income bracket.
    • graeme 8y ago
      Yeah that's what I'm referencing. I'm just wondering if there'd be any difference if they measured wealth/surplus income. Like, is someone with a $40,000/year lifestyle happier with $150,000 salary than $80,000? If you have that kind of surplus you experience a great freedom. You can seek a better job, you can retire early, etc
• fromthestart 8y ago
  I sometimes wonder if the problem is that we don't believe in anything in this country. Religion is on the decline, but we as a society haven't replaced it with anything meaningful. Nationalism is a swear word, jobs are performed with no loyalty (not to blame workers, we're treated pretty expendably), marriage is no longer sacred (don't like your partner? Just divorce and move on to the next!)... What meaning can someone find in such a life? Good times create weak men, and weak men live in existential crisis. Perhaps we need hard times to grant the cure of purpose for our collective depression.
  • JohnFen 8y ago
    > we don't believe in anything in this country. I haven't seen any indication that this is true.
• thisisweirdok 8y ago
  This kind of thing blows my mind. If I were making that much money I'd work for 5 years and retire. I sometimes wonder if that's why I don't make that much? Has anyone here done this and retired?
  • stagger87 8y ago
    There are online communities and websites based on this idea. They call it FIRE, Financial Independence, Retire Early.
• cletus 8y ago
  So there are a few things to unpack here. Some questioned how the guy couldn't live on 500-600k. There is some foundation for this. People do tend to spend up to their means. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking you "need" that $5m house, $150k/year in private schools, save up $1m/child to pay for 4+ years at an Ivy League school and so on when hardly any of that is true and trying to make it true is really what's making you miserable. Fact is, if you'd be much happier in your job this will reflect on your family life and your children's lives much more than being able to go to Yale with no debt ever will. The second thing is though, depending your career, you have to realize that you won't be earning $1m+ a year for 30-40 years. This isn't even necessarily about early retirement either. Think of pro athletes. Your earning window may be very small. You may also have to factor in luck. If you're a corporate lawyer, for example, you may not make it to partner or your firm may go under and that was really your one shot. So having worked for now two big tech companies, I see these kinds of complaints about not being happy or not being paid enough or the like primarily from people who live in the Bay Area who have decided they need a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto and all the aforementioned education expenses. The fact of the matter is that the Bay Area is (IMHO) a pretty terrible place to live. The way I like to put it is people choice to live in the Bay Area to work for company X. Everywhere else pretty much they're working for company X because they live in city Y. The Bay Area probably has a high number of temporary residents. I've met more than a few people in tech who intend to "move home" in N years (where N is typically <7). To be fair, NYC probably has a fairly high number of temporary residents too (although my guess is less than the Bay Area). Lastly, this article was written about MBAs. Honestly, if corporate politics isn't your thing it seems like they've picked the wrong career track. Or they've done it for the money and don't really enjoy it and that's a pretty stupid reason to do anything. I know some of my worst decisions have been made "because money".
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• akhilcacharya 8y ago
  > Rather, they had learned from their own setbacks. And often they wound up richer, more powerful and more content than everyone else. This seems like wish fulfillment to me. Either things change a lot more than I think over 15 years but the so-called "gunners" that I know in their 30's are exceptionally more happy, well adjusted and wealthy than the non-gunners.
• jtdev 8y ago
  I often encounter this “wealth doesn’t make you happy” sentiment... and I find it to be ridiculous. Of course wealth doesn’t make you happy. Poverty however has a tendancy to wreak havoc on the mental health and well being of those who live under its oppression.
• motohagiography 8y ago
  Someone I know makes money at this level and the thing he worries about is that he doesn't have much control over it and if his marriage ends while he's still working, he's going to be on the hook for maintaining that lifestyle whether he wants to or not. It's not what you make, it's how you make it, and whether it's ever really yours.
• onetimemanytime 8y ago
  if you can control your urges: make the $1.2Mil, live as you're making $150K and do it for x years. After that find a job you love.
• thorwasdfasdf 8y ago
  I don't have much sympathy for someone who earns 1.2 million a year. No matter how bad it is, all you have to do is get your spending down to an absolute minimum and save up for 2 years, then you'll have over 1 million in the bank. Then move out to a nice midwestern town and live happily ever after. I know it's really rough leaving all your friends and family and everything you know, but it's not as rough as being poor/homeless your entire life. The meaning of life is to live (not work). The meaning of work is to make money. Money lets you live.
  • antisthenes 8y ago
    Not sure why you felt you needed to make a throwaway to post this. Most sane people should agree with your sentiment.
  • seppin 8y ago
    > Then move out to a nice midwestern town and live happily ever after. That would be hell to most living in the 1%
    • AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      But he's miserable in his current life, too. Maybe the problem is him, not his circumstances? As long as he keeps wanting what he wants and doing what he's been doing, he's going to keep getting what he's been getting.
• chicagoscott 8y ago
  Interesting that this article and the one below, about living a good enough life, were posted on the same day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19218947 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19218947
• sevensor 8y ago
  I think the article dances around the point a bit, with its discussion of the greater satisfaction that comes from meaningful work. The implication is that finance is fundamentally meaningless, and it makes people miserable.
• gdgtfiend 8y ago
  This just in: "Money doesn't buy happiness" Is this truly new or even newsworthy information?
• cryptica 8y ago
  >> If you spend 12 hours a day doing work you hate, at some point it doesn’t matter what your paycheck says Bullshit. If someone earns $1.2 million per year, they can retire after 2 or 3 years. They have no right to complain. They're weak. $1.2 million is the definition of eternal happiness. If you earn that, whatever emotion you feel in your life is called happiness. This emotion which their greedy brains interpret as sadness, my brain would interpret as euphoria.
  • throwaway-1283 8y ago
    You're assuming not working/retirement = happiness, which is wrong.
    • cryptica 8y ago
      It is pure happiness. I'm a curious person and I have a pretty intellectually stimulating job right now (so I understand the appeal) but heck; for $1.2 million per year, I would sit and stare at a blank wall every day for 5 years straight. I can even picture myself after finishing a hard day of hardcore wall-staring, I'd go home with a huge smile on my face. It would be like reliving the best day of my life over and over again for 5 years straight.
      • objektif 8y ago
        You kindnof have a point but the problem is wife and kids. You would have to stare all together.
        • jondubois 8y ago
          Sounds great. I think we'd do it for $600K each. It would be nice to have a colleague to talk to while doing the wall staring.
  • seppin 8y ago
    > Bullshit. If someone earns $1.2 million per year, they can retire after 2 or 3 years. They have no right to complain. They're weak. that's the point, lifestyle creep means you hang out only with people that earn that too. it becomes normal, average even. and you can't dare step away
• Gpetrium 8y ago
  I think a lot of people tend to see the issue from a lower-middle class perspective (economically speaking), this makes it very difficult to understand some of the different issues that can occur at that level. It is similar to someone living in a less developed nation looking at the things most people in the developed world sees as a necessity. People make trade-offs, in some cases the perceived cost of making less money is: * Later retirement * Longer commute * Smaller house * Lower quality of life for the kids (no/limited private school, extracurricular, etc) * Limited network (which can mean power) * Decreased prestige in society (yes, society still see money as prestige) * Lower quality vacation * Less 'mating' options * Ability to provide to extend family & friends * Exchanging a stable income People are afraid of change, "what if the lower wage means losing my wife?" "what if I realize that my new job wasn't what I hyped it to be and I can't get back to what I used to do?" The more you have (money in this case), the more you stand to lose.
• seem_2211 8y ago
  I think we're focusing on the wrong thing here (broadly), which is mocking the guy making $1.2m a year. Yes, that's a lot of money, and almost all of us (myself included) struggle to see how to spend that money. But at the same time, I feel some empathy for that guy - he's increased his expenses proportionally and he feels trapped doing something he doesn't enjoy with no end in sight. I know I've moved my expenses up and to the right since graduating college and starting a professional job. But all of this is a distraction - at the end of the article, the author speaks about the people who are happy and satisfied in their careers - and broadly it seems like people who have autonomy and a sense of purpose in what they do. I run a small business and broadly enjoy working, so things like the Financial Independence movement don't really make sense to me. More money, less money - this is not the crux of the issue. Engagement and autonomy are some of the keys to a fulfilling work life.
  • SZJX 8y ago
    This makes a lot of sense. Retiring early doesn't necessarily make people happy. In fact many could feel lost and unhappy since they're not contributing anything meaningful to the community anymore. A lot of advice mentioned working a job where you feel autonomy and passion, which I think does make a lot of sense and probably should be the way to go.
  • JDiculous 8y ago
    Most people don't have the luxury of being their own bosses. For these people, financial independence will enable them to leave their unfulfilling jobs and pursue their own passions, whether it be starting a small business like you or getting a job that pays less but is more fulfilling. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck with little savings, and thus don't have the freedom to walk away from their jobs.
    • seem_2211 8y ago
      If you are saving towards financial independence you have the luxury of choosing if you'd like to be your own boss, or indeed if you'd like a job that pays less. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, but those are not the people who are saving for FI.
• epx 8y ago
  People lost their spines. If your wife laughs if you want to take a hit in salary, consider a divorce, and so on.
• potatofarmer45 8y ago
  I have a lot of friends who originally went into finance in college to "save up" and then pursue their dreams. But once they started living the good life, things changed. Before you know it, they have a gf/wife who expects the best. An expensive apartment in NYC with a great view they don't have the time to enjoy. And a job that's really a cage because they are addicted to the pay and they know if they leave, they won't be able to make the same amount of money. It seems the longer you're in the system, the harder it is to leave and be willing to let go of that 5th avenue penthouse with stunning views and the "girlfriend who is hotter than the wildest dreams" or "dream artist boyfriend about to make his break". Sad but true
• jdlyga 8y ago
  The trick is to not fall into the trap of spending all the money you're making. Make a budget of how much you spend on rent, bills, and fun things, and don't bump it up each time you get a raise or a new job. Eventually, you'll find you're saving a lot of money. That gives you freedom and flexibility.
  • TrackerFF 8y ago
    A big problem with lifestyle creep - IMO - is that the environment you're in, will/can influence you a great deal. If you're a millionaire hanging around with avg. Joe's making $50k a year, then there's really no external forces to influence your habits. Your buddies aren't going to come around with their $300k sports cars, or invite you to their million dollar homes, and you won't be going to diners or clubs, spending thousands of dollars. The more you see, and hang around those above things, the more normal they become. Peer pressure, even if not intentional, can be quite powerful. If you're a $1.2MM fund manager / senior banker / law partner / management consultant / etc., then I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you: A) Live in a very expensive city (NYC as stated in the article) B) Mostly hang around with peers of your own socio-economic class. (Co-workers / business partners, clients, friends - friends of friends, social activities / clubs, etc.) C) Are regularly exposed to expensive lifestyle events (expensive client diners, first class business trips, expensive homes, etc.) All that stuff becomes so normal - it's easy to get sucked in.
• JDiculous 8y ago
  I have little sympathy for someone making $1.2m/year and complaining that they're depressed because of their job. If you hate your job so much on that income, just work for a year or two and leave! At that income there's no reason why he shouldn't have enough saved up to retire in a lower cost of living area (assuming this isn't his first job out of uni and he's not spending like a maniac). If not (or at least if he's not on track), then he's just being financially irresponsible and needs to cut down his expenses. You don't need that $4m penthouse or Lamborghini. On another note, how does one land these $1.2m/yr jobs? That's over $3k/day, I couldn't even spend that kind of money if I tried.
• subpixel 8y ago
  How does the design of that page do anything but detract from the content and the reading experience? The NYTimes has a pretty decent boilerplate article template, they should just stick to it.
• _bxg1 8y ago
  "he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible" That's all there is to it.
• justfor1comment 8y ago
  I think the struggle to find meaning in jobs is correlated with just how abstract the jobs have become nowadays. Most people don't directly interact with their customers or they don't see any tangible effect of their work. Their work is so specialized and niche that they cannot figure out why the economic machine needs them doing this.
• flatfilefan 8y ago
  1. There will always be unhappy people regardless of their income. 2. Extreme population density is not for everyone. Just the sheer frequency of daily subconscious eye contact in a megapolis must be extreme by e.g. 50-100 years ago standard. There should be some self-limiting mechanism in human population. Maybe that’s the factor provoking the unhappiness and decline.
• somberi 8y ago
  On a side note, I thought I stumbled on to Financial Times. This was the first article I read in NY Times in pink canvas.
• raybon 8y ago
  I grew up on less than $10 per month for all expenses, including food, clothing and shelter. Now I'm worth $2MM+ at age 40 and an executive at Silicon Valley. I also have an Ivy League MBA. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it does solve for basic anxiety that arises when you don't know where your next meal is going to come from. There are things in life that money can't solve for, such as genuine love of a person, mental health, kid's health, family ego clashes.
• tamica 8y ago
  What matters more than income is wealth. When you become a high earner especially in cities like NYC and SF, you learn about the power of inter-generational wealth and the opportunities it affords. You see it every day. You become acutely aware about how unfair the world is, and how it will only become increasingly unfair as the truly wealthy entrench their power. Forget about lifestyle creep, if you are self aware parent who wants an easy life for their kids, you start having wealth creep. You don't just want to hit a number where you can retire in a low cost area. You want enough wealth to buy your kids access. Access you didn't have when you were clawing yourself up to a high income and would have made things alot easier. Access that eliminates the need for luck. Inter-generational wealth could require you to leave behind 10M+ for 2-3 kids. A property each. For those of you who scoff and say that is ridiculous, you probably don't share the paradigm that the world is unfair and becoming increasingly unfair to overly benefit the wealthy. Or you are fine with letting your kids fight for themselves in this world. I wish I didn't have the above paradigm, but I have seen TOO much and that is the worldview I have.
• SZJX 8y ago
  I wonder if the problem is simply exaggerated. Is this really only the case with white-collar Americans? I'd imagine that throughout the human history the vast majority of human beings have always been working like this, or even much worse, e.g. actual slaves who constituted a huge percentage of the population. Maybe it's just that there isn't that much of a tradition to talk about the problem that often, and now that our material comfort is quite advanced, we think about such issues more and more, which is a good thing. We're not quite there yet but at least we're rethinking our lives and trying to find solutions, instead of just passively accepting whatever is thrown at us.