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While he made a successful comeback (however far from his first success), saying he toiled in misery for years is a little bit exagerated. Indeed, he was still

While he made a successful comeback (however far from his first success), saying he toiled in misery for years is a little bit exagerated. Indeed, he was still the owner of a house (and probably of other goods). And this house was big enough to have a value probably equal to a today million dollars. That's not what I call to be toiled in misery.

colechristensen 7y ago
Being rich doesn't make you automatically happy, you can hear many stories about billionaires who have and have achieved everything they could possibly want being miserable – wanting things and then getting them isn't the source of happiness, being faced with this reality firsthand by running out of things to want and still feeling dissatisfied with life can be (imagined at least) really miserable and hopeless.
- digitaltrees 7y ago
  The line is subsistence, not being a billionaire. If you don’t have food, shelter and health care you are often very very in happy. If you have those, each additional dollar contributes a much smaller degree of happiness. The research suggest the line for diminishing returns in the US is $80k in most cities.
core-questions 7y ago
Misery is a state of mind, not of finance. I'm sure plenty of billionaires are personally miserable, despite their ability to do literally anything.
Smithalicious 7y ago
Whether or not he toiled in misery is independent of how much money he had. It only depends on whether he toiled, and whether he was miserable doing so.
- chosenbreed37 7y ago
  Indeed. And I dare say living in a million dollar house is not so comforting if you've just forfeited $125m worth of profits year on year :-)
  - lutorm 7y ago
    What happened to diversification??
arunbahl 7y ago
Misery, like happiness, is orthogonal to material possessions.
- TuringTest 7y ago
  ...above a certain level of material possessions. You cross the barrier down, and that assertion becomes false real fast.
asdfman123 7y ago
Happiness is relative to expectation. Most people reading this will never feel extreme hunger and have all their material needs met forever, but they will probably also go through things that to them, feel like miserable failures. You might even be forced to leave your cushy jobs and take an annual salary that is what 50 African laborers make in year. And it will possibly take years, maybe well over a decade, to live down how bad you feel about yourself.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Zoom out from specific circumstances and it seems like human misery is fairly constant. Whether you're scrambling around the forest looking for berries and killing things to eat with pointy sticks or working an office job living in a suburb – I don't really think your emotional experience really changes all that much. I think your misery and delight are driven by the best and worst things in your life and it doesn't really matter all that much what your circumstances are. When things get better you find new things to be miserable about, when things get worse you stop caring about the little things and your misery is driven by the new worst thing. I don't see standard of living really driving all that much happiness. Maybe some, but much less than I think most people expect.
  - paulmd 7y ago
    Spoken like someone who can't comprehend living hand to mouth. Happiness is definitely a hockey-stick shaped curve, going from 1M to 10M is not going to make you happier, but someone who is making $100k is going to be far far happier than someone making $20k. The difference between scrabbling to pay your bills and keep the heat on, vs actually having some savings and free money for recreation, is absolutely massive.
    - Aeolun 7y ago
      I’m not so certain about that actually, I’ve certainly seen people making $20k that had more free money and recreation time than some people making $100k. Especially as regards recreation time. To be fair, making $20k was almost always a choice in those cases.

colechristensen 7y ago

Being rich doesn't make you automatically happy, you can hear many stories about billionaires who have and have achieved everything they could possibly want being miserable – wanting things and then getting them isn't the source of happiness, being faced with this reality firsthand by running out of things to want and still feeling dissatisfied with life can be (imagined at least) really miserable and hopeless.

digitaltrees 7y ago
The line is subsistence, not being a billionaire. If you don’t have food, shelter and health care you are often very very in happy. If you have those, each additional dollar contributes a much smaller degree of happiness. The research suggest the line for diminishing returns in the US is $80k in most cities.

core-questions 7y ago

Misery is a state of mind, not of finance. I'm sure plenty of billionaires are personally miserable, despite their ability to do literally anything.

Smithalicious 7y ago

Whether or not he toiled in misery is independent of how much money he had. It only depends on whether he toiled, and whether he was miserable doing so.

chosenbreed37 7y ago
Indeed. And I dare say living in a million dollar house is not so comforting if you've just forfeited $125m worth of profits year on year :-)
- lutorm 7y ago
  What happened to diversification??

arunbahl 7y ago

Misery, like happiness, is orthogonal to material possessions.

TuringTest 7y ago
...above a certain level of material possessions. You cross the barrier down, and that assertion becomes false real fast.

asdfman123 7y ago

Happiness is relative to expectation. Most people reading this will never feel extreme hunger and have all their material needs met forever, but they will probably also go through things that to them, feel like miserable failures. You might even be forced to leave your cushy jobs and take an annual salary that is what 50 African laborers make in year. And it will possibly take years, maybe well over a decade, to live down how bad you feel about yourself.

colechristensen 7y ago
Zoom out from specific circumstances and it seems like human misery is fairly constant. Whether you're scrambling around the forest looking for berries and killing things to eat with pointy sticks or working an office job living in a suburb – I don't really think your emotional experience really changes all that much. I think your misery and delight are driven by the best and worst things in your life and it doesn't really matter all that much what your circumstances are. When things get better you find new things to be miserable about, when things get worse you stop caring about the little things and your misery is driven by the new worst thing. I don't see standard of living really driving all that much happiness. Maybe some, but much less than I think most people expect.
- paulmd 7y ago
  Spoken like someone who can't comprehend living hand to mouth. Happiness is definitely a hockey-stick shaped curve, going from 1M to 10M is not going to make you happier, but someone who is making $100k is going to be far far happier than someone making $20k. The difference between scrabbling to pay your bills and keep the heat on, vs actually having some savings and free money for recreation, is absolutely massive.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    I’m not so certain about that actually, I’ve certainly seen people making $20k that had more free money and recreation time than some people making $100k. Especially as regards recreation time. To be fair, making $20k was almost always a choice in those cases.