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The Highest Forms of Wealth

210 points by joeyespo 5y ago

ProjectArcturis 5y ago
He left out the level of wealth where you fly to the edge of outer space on a penis-rocket.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  I kind of assumed from the title, since everyone's talking about Mr Bezos now, that that's the implicit context for this piece. And that the article therefore doesn't even need to explicitly mention it.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Do you have a better shape for a rocket other than vaguely cylindrical and taller than it is wide?
- dmje 5y ago
  Has anyone coined the term "cocket" yet? If not, I claim it.
philosopher1234 5y ago
It’s noteworthy that relationships are entirely left out of this article.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Relationships are often about time you spend together with someone, and allowing you control over your time (first item) has a beneficial effect on relationship-building. If you think about relationships being about giving and receiving, then what more valuable resource can you give someone than your time?
  - philosopher1234 5y ago
    Sure, wealth can help with relationships, but how can you write an article about the highest forms of wealth and not even mention them? It betrays a particular view of the world and a particular set of values. And while it’s not out and said, I think this article is interested in achieving a satisfying life, for which I think relationships are more important than finance.
    - Godel_unicode 5y ago
      This too is covered, both explicitly and implicitly, in the article. The concept that more money can make you less happy is explicitly covered, and the concept that if you want to do something and can't you aren't wealthy is covered. Obviously, there are many people for whom what they want to do today is play with their kids/grandkids/friends. I think the issue many are running into with this article is that autonomy is a complicated subject and it covers whatever you're thinking isn't covered here.
      - philosopher1234 5y ago
        You might be able to make extended arguments about how the points in the article relate to relationships, or influence them, but suggesting the topic is entirely covered by this limited advice is absurd. Also, I’m not simply looking for it to be covered but for it to be appropriately centered, which it’s not.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - temp8964 5y ago
        Lol. When you have "kids/grandkids/friends", you don't get to control your time. You don't just "play with kids/grandkids/friends". LOL. The author obviously didn't have this in mind.
        5y ago
- Barrin92 5y ago
  obvious why, because the author has a somewhat juvenile view of thinking of 'independence' as the primary thing to be after in life. (and in this peace identifies 'real wealth' as the means to achieve that). "Controlling your time and the ability to wake up and say, “I can do whatever I want today.” Note that this doesn't apply to one particular set of people, individuals with families or real obligations and people who depend on them.
  - adriand 5y ago
    I took the author’s perspective to be within the context of wealth-building, i.e. the world of work/professional focus/etc. Within this context I thought his point was well-made: it isn’t that agency is more important than all other things, but rather that having agency, while one goes about building wealth, is of paramount importance.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    What good are you to the family, and people who depend on you, if you don't have the autonomy to spend time with them and help them when they need it? You're much less good to them (up to the point to being an absentee parent because e.g. you work too much) if you don't have autonomy.
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      How is that autonomy? I have to wake up at 6am every single morning and make milk and change diapers. I have to take a crap with the door open. I have to think a day in advance if I can take a shower. If I'm not doing one of those things I'm working, fixing something around the house, cooking, or running an errand. What I don't have is the privilege to do anything aside from what must be done. Don't get me wrong, I love having a family but that's kind of my point: autonomy isn't worth a damn to me.
      - coldtea 5y ago
        >How is that autonomy? I have to wake up at 6am every single morning and make milk and change diapers. I have to take a crap with the door open. I have to think a day in advance if I can take a shower. That's still autonomy, since getting into that was your decision to make. Nobody put a pistol on your head to start a family and have kids (hopefully). That's something you chose, with the restrictions that come with it. You could might as well not have started a family, and thus not having to do that. (Not to mention that if you had more money you could delegate most of those, including making milk and changing diapers, to some helpers, and only keep the "quality" time). Now, imagine to still "lov[ing] having a family", but being so poor you couldn't afford to start one (or nobody would marry you, because you're, say, homeless). Or having to work double shifts just to make ends meet, and only being able to be minimally present for your kids, despite wanting to be there more. That's lack of autonomy.
newsclues 5y ago
Freedom of inconvenience is what I view ultra wealth and power to grant.
- tnel77 5y ago
  I don’t think you need ultra wealth to be free of most inconvenience.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    The difference between having money to fly first class, and having a staff that manages for private plane, helicopters and yachts to avoid traffic or lines at airports etc, is an example of how wealth isolates people from inconvenience.
ok2938 5y ago
Source of happiness: Being able to just say no to any job since I could live quite well without one until 2040.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Joe Rogan said in his earlier podcasts said that the greatest thing money ever did for him was never having to worry about bills. Spent $2000 at a bar buying drinks but didn't know the prices? Oh well. Porsche needs another repair? Sure when will it be done by? I'm definitely not "rich" in the sense that I'd shrug paying those things off, but if I had to, I could pay it in cash tomorrow no problem. And frankly, I have to agree with his statement. It didn't buy me happiness, but it has bought me peace of mind. I never had to worry once about how I'm going to pay for stuff simply because I just worked and saved my money. I lived a very simple life and never felt a compulsive need to buy expensive and fancy things just because I had the money to do so. I've known way to many people who did that and were always dirt poor. Most of the time they couldn't even afford to fix essential things like a car to get them to their job.
  - gexla 5y ago
    Joe Rogan isn't a great person to take any lessons from. At heart he's a comedian, which must be the most unconventional path you can take to anywhere in the US. Comedians live on the road telling jokes. I wonder how much he really had to deal with bills.
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      Let me clear up some ignorance since a lot of HN has most likely not listened to enough early Joe Rogan podcasts. >Joe Rogan isn't a great person to take any lessons from If a republican says abortion wrong, should we discount their statement because they're republican? It's one thing to just listen to people and believe everything they say. It's another to comprehend when someone is just bullshitting and when someone is speaking from life experience. Joe in the early podcast was far less on the Ivory tower as he is today. >At heart he's a comedian Firstly, every single person who brings up his history prior to his mainstream success was he never did drugs, wired out of his mind to do better, and was very high strung. Universally all his friends on the podcast say this. It wasn't until he became a full on stoner that changed. Also, he said his big breaks were from News Radio and then Fear Factor. Both of which were his steady income's well before he became a famous comedian. He was active as a comedian but he barely had any significant success at it until around Fear Factor. He even acknowledges that he got lucky. So he's not some moron that thinks he was entitled it. He said his whole life would've been different had he not gotten a job on news radio. >I wonder how much he really had to deal with bills. None in the context of my statement. All his money paying for his porsche, place to live, and lifestyle were from News Radio and Fear Factor. That's how he got famous and he has since been able to continue that success. His comedy didn't take off outside of Boston until well in his 30's.
dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
The highest form of wealth is health. Working eyes, working ears, working arms, legs that move when you want them and where you want them. An uninterrupted night of sleep because you aren't in pain. Count your blessings every morning.
- TylerLives 5y ago
  I'm young so I'm still fairly healthy but I do have some minor issues(that aren't solvable in an easy way) and the thought of my health continuing to decline over time terrifies me. To make matters worse, nobody around me seems to care. All those issues are solvable, if we had more knowledge and better tools. I'm not sure how I can contribute, but I am sure that this is the most important problem that affects everyone and something I want to dedicate my life to.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  This is much too narrow, it's just a special case of the articles point; that the highest form of wealth is autonomy. From TFA: 'the ability to wake up and say, “I can do whatever I want today.”' Hard to wake up and do whatever you want if you're paralyzed/in a coma/cripplingly depressed.
  - briefcomment 5y ago
    Good point. The word "wealth" does not need to be wed to the concept of money, and "opportunity" is a suitable synonym.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    As someone with kids I don't feel this fits at all. I feel much wealthier having kids now but I have nowhere near the autonomy I did before kids (I was single until my mid-30s). I don't feel I have much choice at all on what to do on a given day—or any single day of the year for that matter.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rwilson4 5y ago
The intellectual honesty one hits hard. A luxury indeed!
gexla 5y ago
Odd resident for the HN front page, but if you could take just 5 authors with you, then Morgan Housel might be one is them. Well, unless you have already achieved the sorts of fuck you money he talks about in this article. I would still appreciate his wisdom though. It's Sunday, maybe you have some time, just open up a Google search and marathon read everything this person writes.
- abledon 5y ago
  have you read the new "The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness Paperback – Sept. 8 2020" ?
  - gexla 5y ago
    Thanks for mentioning that. Do you have a review?
    - abledon 5y ago
      the bite-sized snack review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3727503627 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3727503627 (top post on goodreads) the video summary made by lower middle class kids in india: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3909991784 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3909991784
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    "Don't waste money on toys or bling" "Do some research" "Buy and hold" That's basically it. None of these will make you really rich. What makes you really rich is monopolising a market, overcharging and/or enforcing unfair terms, and farming the work/time/money/attention of others on an industrial scale. Trading is small-time compared to that.
acituan 5y ago
What is trying to be expressed by "highest form of wealth" is usually about agency. The problem with agency, unlike what 'power' connotes you to believe; you can't just have and store it for later. Like others rightly point out in this thread, there are many avenues in life you want to be agentic but cannot solve with anything you possess, but only through becoming a required thing through transformation; examples are health, skillfulness, being understood in a relationship, an equanimous existence etc. Even then, you're to an extent up to the whims of misfortune and fortune, or if you're not allergic to that word; to fate. There is at least one thing you can't be agentic about with any wealth, and that is your fatality; which connects to the original meaning of fate. But that's not even the only problem with agency; most of the time you don't even know when you have it and also when you don't have it. This is the bread and butter of psychotherapy; you either misattribute blame where it doesn't belong or fail to hold people/yourself accountable when you should; or you miss what and how you could solve a problem but instead invest your energy and emotions in an avenue that just won't work. Which means agency, capability of doing things that get you towards your real goals, whether you've realized them or not, is deeply tied to wisdom; knowing in which manner you're deceiving yourself be it through buying things instead of being things, or getting out of being confused about whose agency exactly lies where and where is the way out of an agentic entrapment. Which ultimately means, there is one and one only form of wealth, that thing you constantly need to aspire to build, and that is wisdom.
- MichaelZuo 5y ago
  “To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.” - Horace
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > Which ultimately means, there is one and one only form of wealth, that thing you constantly need to aspire to build, and that is wisdom. For you, apparently, that resonates. The author contextualises his thoughts quite differently, and says something different. It may seem trivial, but to appreciate the difference, consider the first two words of this sentence from the author. > To me, the highest form of wealth is controlling your time.
porknubbins 5y ago
Trying to come up with some static perfect state in which I would be happiest has been an incredibly slippery problem for me. Even agency itself can become exhausting as anyone who has worked for themselves and gone back to the (temporary) relief of a manager assigning a fixed set of tasks will come to realize. Even if I had endless wealth and time which would solve 90% of my problems I would still have to struggle to find new meaningful challenges. This is not to despair of ever finding happiness just to remind myself its (for me, I don’t want to project my phsychology on the whole world) more a process and to enjoy the present with the knowledge that “this too shall pass”.
- bredren 5y ago
  Reading this, there seems to be an assumption that your perceived purpose is to achieve happiness. There is a school of thought that one’s purpose is not to do anything but live. Where life contains both periods of happiness and despair. That both are important, though there are an infinite set of emotional positions to experience and that all of them are valuable, even if some are unsettling or uncomfortable. I used to have preconceptions of not just achieving happiness as a purpose but which things specifically I needed to accomplish to be happy. Several years ago a friend introduced me to philosophy offered by the mystic Sadguru. Some of his work has had great influence on me. You may appreciate some of what he has to say: https://youtu.be/vQ7ZvPghdy8 https://youtu.be/vQ7ZvPghdy8
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
Wealth is being able to go to a restaurant, look at the items on the menu, and worry more about calories than cost.
- coldtea 5y ago
  You can do that (and millions do) and be literally broke or worse (in debt). Tons of people by a $5 coffee or a $50 steak that they can't really afford (because they have credit card debt, because that way they don't save anything for retirement or an emergency, and so on). Wealth ain't that.
  - sgt 5y ago
    Yup, just basically living from hand to mouth, with the illusion that you're really well off. That is a dangerous mindset. You may be doing OK - but far from truly wealthy.
gotaran 5y ago
Enough with the Morgan Housel spam.
mpweiher 5y ago
Money is coined liberty - Fyodor Dostoevsky
canistel 5y ago
Desiring money beyond what you need to be happy is just an accounting hobby. This did hit home, and hard. However, buffer and lots of it, is the only preparation one can do for Black Swan events. I don't think keeping money that is sufficient to keep you happy is a healthy strategy in the long term. Additionally, we need to bear in mind that we (humans) no longer live in our ancestral environment which we evolved for, and happiness as we experience it, is more often than not out-of-place.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Maybe feeling confident that you can handle such an event is what you need to feel happy. But it's good to reassess once in a while, too. Maybe it's not worth all the other difficulty to hedge against this or that particular risk. Maybe you thought you needed it to be happy but you don't, etc.
robertwt7 5y ago
This is the highest rated (by me) article today that I read
mathgladiator 5y ago
I'm thinking about retiring early. I have a reasonable nest-egg, and I realize that I worked too hard for the first half of my life. What if I minimize what I do for the later half. Is it wrong to sit on a couch and enjoy the presence of my wife while watching shitty TV? Is it really that bad? Play computer games with my friends? It feels so easy to be distracted with things and goals when the real meat of life is being present with people. I'm thinking about painting what I feel. Hang out with wife, spend a few hours on fitness, a few hours doing art, and maybe dicking around on the computer. No deadlines. No meaning. No hustle.
- klohto 5y ago
  Absolutely not. You should do what you enjoy. I was facing a similar problem, where I started playing games again after few years of grinding and it was hard for my mind to accept that I can “slack-off” and do something else than work. Took me a whole month of not working and just enjoying stuff to rewire my brain to that healthy relationship you describe. I don’t believe retiring early is necessary, but this lifestyle definitely requires a on-your-own-time job.
  - mathgladiator 5y ago
    It's strange. On one level, I've reached a degree of mastery with computing and leadership, so should I use this knowledge? Or... what if I just started painting. I answered the question of what I would paint. I'd focus and paint dragons versus solo man in every day tasks. In some form, a form of solo therapy dealing with the internal hero journey that I have been on with my career. The key mistake that I feel I have made is focusing on goals... the slaying of the dragon. But, what happens when you slay the dragon? find a bigger dragon? Keep going? I've been haunted by the David Chou JRE ( https://youtu.be/j7T6__UbhBI?t=11323 https://youtu.be/j7T6__UbhBI?t=11323 ) in relation to Anthony Bourdain.
- N00bN00b 5y ago
  It's not wrong. Life is ultimately meaningless. I'm doing the same thing. Except that I understand that I was able to do so because I'm considerably more resourceful than average. I personally think that gives me the responsibility to at least improve the lives of a couple of people. Especially because it's relatively easy for me, compared to how hard most people have it on planet earth. But if you just got the money from your parents or something, even that reasoning doesn't apply to you. Most people really don't add much more to history than hanging out and making sure their DNA is passed on to another generation. Nothing wrong with being one of them. You might end up depressed due to boredom and lack of purpose, but that's easily fixable with antidepressants.
cammil 5y ago
We're really taking about happiness here aren't we?
holoduke 5y ago
Wealth is when you feel free in your head. When feel comfortable with your doings. And when you are surrounded by good people. I know how it is to have a very good income. It makes life very pleasant the first years, but you get used to it. And money can and to some degree in my case destroy a lot of things. For example exchanging a family for a new girl. Partying with the richest and forgetting your old friends. The trick is to stay conversative and don't fall for the cool VIP life.

210 points by joeyespo 5y ago

ProjectArcturis 5y ago

He left out the level of wealth where you fly to the edge of outer space on a penis-rocket.

codetrotter 5y ago
I kind of assumed from the title, since everyone's talking about Mr Bezos now, that that's the implicit context for this piece. And that the article therefore doesn't even need to explicitly mention it.
oh_sigh 5y ago
Do you have a better shape for a rocket other than vaguely cylindrical and taller than it is wide?
dmje 5y ago
Has anyone coined the term "cocket" yet? If not, I claim it.

philosopher1234 5y ago

It’s noteworthy that relationships are entirely left out of this article.

forgotmypw17 5y ago
Relationships are often about time you spend together with someone, and allowing you control over your time (first item) has a beneficial effect on relationship-building. If you think about relationships being about giving and receiving, then what more valuable resource can you give someone than your time?
- philosopher1234 5y ago
  Sure, wealth can help with relationships, but how can you write an article about the highest forms of wealth and not even mention them? It betrays a particular view of the world and a particular set of values. And while it’s not out and said, I think this article is interested in achieving a satisfying life, for which I think relationships are more important than finance.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    This too is covered, both explicitly and implicitly, in the article. The concept that more money can make you less happy is explicitly covered, and the concept that if you want to do something and can't you aren't wealthy is covered. Obviously, there are many people for whom what they want to do today is play with their kids/grandkids/friends. I think the issue many are running into with this article is that autonomy is a complicated subject and it covers whatever you're thinking isn't covered here.
    - philosopher1234 5y ago
      You might be able to make extended arguments about how the points in the article relate to relationships, or influence them, but suggesting the topic is entirely covered by this limited advice is absurd. Also, I’m not simply looking for it to be covered but for it to be appropriately centered, which it’s not.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - temp8964 5y ago
      Lol. When you have "kids/grandkids/friends", you don't get to control your time. You don't just "play with kids/grandkids/friends". LOL. The author obviously didn't have this in mind.
      - 5y ago
Barrin92 5y ago
obvious why, because the author has a somewhat juvenile view of thinking of 'independence' as the primary thing to be after in life. (and in this peace identifies 'real wealth' as the means to achieve that). "Controlling your time and the ability to wake up and say, “I can do whatever I want today.” Note that this doesn't apply to one particular set of people, individuals with families or real obligations and people who depend on them.
- adriand 5y ago
  I took the author’s perspective to be within the context of wealth-building, i.e. the world of work/professional focus/etc. Within this context I thought his point was well-made: it isn’t that agency is more important than all other things, but rather that having agency, while one goes about building wealth, is of paramount importance.
- coldtea 5y ago
  What good are you to the family, and people who depend on you, if you don't have the autonomy to spend time with them and help them when they need it? You're much less good to them (up to the point to being an absentee parent because e.g. you work too much) if you don't have autonomy.
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    How is that autonomy? I have to wake up at 6am every single morning and make milk and change diapers. I have to take a crap with the door open. I have to think a day in advance if I can take a shower. If I'm not doing one of those things I'm working, fixing something around the house, cooking, or running an errand. What I don't have is the privilege to do anything aside from what must be done. Don't get me wrong, I love having a family but that's kind of my point: autonomy isn't worth a damn to me.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >How is that autonomy? I have to wake up at 6am every single morning and make milk and change diapers. I have to take a crap with the door open. I have to think a day in advance if I can take a shower. That's still autonomy, since getting into that was your decision to make. Nobody put a pistol on your head to start a family and have kids (hopefully). That's something you chose, with the restrictions that come with it. You could might as well not have started a family, and thus not having to do that. (Not to mention that if you had more money you could delegate most of those, including making milk and changing diapers, to some helpers, and only keep the "quality" time). Now, imagine to still "lov[ing] having a family", but being so poor you couldn't afford to start one (or nobody would marry you, because you're, say, homeless). Or having to work double shifts just to make ends meet, and only being able to be minimally present for your kids, despite wanting to be there more. That's lack of autonomy.

newsclues 5y ago

Freedom of inconvenience is what I view ultra wealth and power to grant.

tnel77 5y ago
I don’t think you need ultra wealth to be free of most inconvenience.
- newsclues 5y ago
  The difference between having money to fly first class, and having a staff that manages for private plane, helicopters and yachts to avoid traffic or lines at airports etc, is an example of how wealth isolates people from inconvenience.

ok2938 5y ago

Source of happiness: Being able to just say no to any job since I could live quite well without one until 2040.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Joe Rogan said in his earlier podcasts said that the greatest thing money ever did for him was never having to worry about bills. Spent $2000 at a bar buying drinks but didn't know the prices? Oh well. Porsche needs another repair? Sure when will it be done by? I'm definitely not "rich" in the sense that I'd shrug paying those things off, but if I had to, I could pay it in cash tomorrow no problem. And frankly, I have to agree with his statement. It didn't buy me happiness, but it has bought me peace of mind. I never had to worry once about how I'm going to pay for stuff simply because I just worked and saved my money. I lived a very simple life and never felt a compulsive need to buy expensive and fancy things just because I had the money to do so. I've known way to many people who did that and were always dirt poor. Most of the time they couldn't even afford to fix essential things like a car to get them to their job.
- gexla 5y ago
  Joe Rogan isn't a great person to take any lessons from. At heart he's a comedian, which must be the most unconventional path you can take to anywhere in the US. Comedians live on the road telling jokes. I wonder how much he really had to deal with bills.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    Let me clear up some ignorance since a lot of HN has most likely not listened to enough early Joe Rogan podcasts. >Joe Rogan isn't a great person to take any lessons from If a republican says abortion wrong, should we discount their statement because they're republican? It's one thing to just listen to people and believe everything they say. It's another to comprehend when someone is just bullshitting and when someone is speaking from life experience. Joe in the early podcast was far less on the Ivory tower as he is today. >At heart he's a comedian Firstly, every single person who brings up his history prior to his mainstream success was he never did drugs, wired out of his mind to do better, and was very high strung. Universally all his friends on the podcast say this. It wasn't until he became a full on stoner that changed. Also, he said his big breaks were from News Radio and then Fear Factor. Both of which were his steady income's well before he became a famous comedian. He was active as a comedian but he barely had any significant success at it until around Fear Factor. He even acknowledges that he got lucky. So he's not some moron that thinks he was entitled it. He said his whole life would've been different had he not gotten a job on news radio. >I wonder how much he really had to deal with bills. None in the context of my statement. All his money paying for his porsche, place to live, and lifestyle were from News Radio and Fear Factor. That's how he got famous and he has since been able to continue that success. His comedy didn't take off outside of Boston until well in his 30's.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago

The highest form of wealth is health. Working eyes, working ears, working arms, legs that move when you want them and where you want them. An uninterrupted night of sleep because you aren't in pain. Count your blessings every morning.

TylerLives 5y ago
I'm young so I'm still fairly healthy but I do have some minor issues(that aren't solvable in an easy way) and the thought of my health continuing to decline over time terrifies me. To make matters worse, nobody around me seems to care. All those issues are solvable, if we had more knowledge and better tools. I'm not sure how I can contribute, but I am sure that this is the most important problem that affects everyone and something I want to dedicate my life to.
Godel_unicode 5y ago
This is much too narrow, it's just a special case of the articles point; that the highest form of wealth is autonomy. From TFA: 'the ability to wake up and say, “I can do whatever I want today.”' Hard to wake up and do whatever you want if you're paralyzed/in a coma/cripplingly depressed.
- briefcomment 5y ago
  Good point. The word "wealth" does not need to be wed to the concept of money, and "opportunity" is a suitable synonym.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- bin_bash 5y ago
  As someone with kids I don't feel this fits at all. I feel much wealthier having kids now but I have nowhere near the autonomy I did before kids (I was single until my mid-30s). I don't feel I have much choice at all on what to do on a given day—or any single day of the year for that matter.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rwilson4 5y ago

The intellectual honesty one hits hard. A luxury indeed!

gexla 5y ago

Odd resident for the HN front page, but if you could take just 5 authors with you, then Morgan Housel might be one is them. Well, unless you have already achieved the sorts of fuck you money he talks about in this article. I would still appreciate his wisdom though. It's Sunday, maybe you have some time, just open up a Google search and marathon read everything this person writes.

abledon 5y ago
have you read the new "The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness Paperback – Sept. 8 2020" ?
- gexla 5y ago
  Thanks for mentioning that. Do you have a review?
  - abledon 5y ago
    the bite-sized snack review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3727503627 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3727503627 (top post on goodreads) the video summary made by lower middle class kids in india: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3909991784 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3909991784
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  "Don't waste money on toys or bling" "Do some research" "Buy and hold" That's basically it. None of these will make you really rich. What makes you really rich is monopolising a market, overcharging and/or enforcing unfair terms, and farming the work/time/money/attention of others on an industrial scale. Trading is small-time compared to that.

acituan 5y ago

What is trying to be expressed by "highest form of wealth" is usually about agency. The problem with agency, unlike what 'power' connotes you to believe; you can't just have and store it for later. Like others rightly point out in this thread, there are many avenues in life you want to be agentic but cannot solve with anything you possess, but only through becoming a required thing through transformation; examples are health, skillfulness, being understood in a relationship, an equanimous existence etc. Even then, you're to an extent up to the whims of misfortune and fortune, or if you're not allergic to that word; to fate. There is at least one thing you can't be agentic about with any wealth, and that is your fatality; which connects to the original meaning of fate. But that's not even the only problem with agency; most of the time you don't even know when you have it and also when you don't have it. This is the bread and butter of psychotherapy; you either misattribute blame where it doesn't belong or fail to hold people/yourself accountable when you should; or you miss what and how you could solve a problem but instead invest your energy and emotions in an avenue that just won't work. Which means agency, capability of doing things that get you towards your real goals, whether you've realized them or not, is deeply tied to wisdom; knowing in which manner you're deceiving yourself be it through buying things instead of being things, or getting out of being confused about whose agency exactly lies where and where is the way out of an agentic entrapment. Which ultimately means, there is one and one only form of wealth, that thing you constantly need to aspire to build, and that is wisdom.

MichaelZuo 5y ago
“To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.” - Horace
wombatmobile 5y ago
> Which ultimately means, there is one and one only form of wealth, that thing you constantly need to aspire to build, and that is wisdom. For you, apparently, that resonates. The author contextualises his thoughts quite differently, and says something different. It may seem trivial, but to appreciate the difference, consider the first two words of this sentence from the author. > To me, the highest form of wealth is controlling your time.

porknubbins 5y ago

Trying to come up with some static perfect state in which I would be happiest has been an incredibly slippery problem for me. Even agency itself can become exhausting as anyone who has worked for themselves and gone back to the (temporary) relief of a manager assigning a fixed set of tasks will come to realize. Even if I had endless wealth and time which would solve 90% of my problems I would still have to struggle to find new meaningful challenges. This is not to despair of ever finding happiness just to remind myself its (for me, I don’t want to project my phsychology on the whole world) more a process and to enjoy the present with the knowledge that “this too shall pass”.

bredren 5y ago
Reading this, there seems to be an assumption that your perceived purpose is to achieve happiness. There is a school of thought that one’s purpose is not to do anything but live. Where life contains both periods of happiness and despair. That both are important, though there are an infinite set of emotional positions to experience and that all of them are valuable, even if some are unsettling or uncomfortable. I used to have preconceptions of not just achieving happiness as a purpose but which things specifically I needed to accomplish to be happy. Several years ago a friend introduced me to philosophy offered by the mystic Sadguru. Some of his work has had great influence on me. You may appreciate some of what he has to say: https://youtu.be/vQ7ZvPghdy8 https://youtu.be/vQ7ZvPghdy8

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

Wealth is being able to go to a restaurant, look at the items on the menu, and worry more about calories than cost.

coldtea 5y ago
You can do that (and millions do) and be literally broke or worse (in debt). Tons of people by a $5 coffee or a $50 steak that they can't really afford (because they have credit card debt, because that way they don't save anything for retirement or an emergency, and so on). Wealth ain't that.
- sgt 5y ago
  Yup, just basically living from hand to mouth, with the illusion that you're really well off. That is a dangerous mindset. You may be doing OK - but far from truly wealthy.

gotaran 5y ago

Enough with the Morgan Housel spam.

mpweiher 5y ago

Money is coined liberty - Fyodor Dostoevsky

canistel 5y ago

Desiring money beyond what you need to be happy is just an accounting hobby. This did hit home, and hard. However, buffer and lots of it, is the only preparation one can do for Black Swan events. I don't think keeping money that is sufficient to keep you happy is a healthy strategy in the long term. Additionally, we need to bear in mind that we (humans) no longer live in our ancestral environment which we evolved for, and happiness as we experience it, is more often than not out-of-place.

nerdponx 5y ago
Maybe feeling confident that you can handle such an event is what you need to feel happy. But it's good to reassess once in a while, too. Maybe it's not worth all the other difficulty to hedge against this or that particular risk. Maybe you thought you needed it to be happy but you don't, etc.

robertwt7 5y ago

This is the highest rated (by me) article today that I read

mathgladiator 5y ago

I'm thinking about retiring early. I have a reasonable nest-egg, and I realize that I worked too hard for the first half of my life. What if I minimize what I do for the later half. Is it wrong to sit on a couch and enjoy the presence of my wife while watching shitty TV? Is it really that bad? Play computer games with my friends? It feels so easy to be distracted with things and goals when the real meat of life is being present with people. I'm thinking about painting what I feel. Hang out with wife, spend a few hours on fitness, a few hours doing art, and maybe dicking around on the computer. No deadlines. No meaning. No hustle.

klohto 5y ago
Absolutely not. You should do what you enjoy. I was facing a similar problem, where I started playing games again after few years of grinding and it was hard for my mind to accept that I can “slack-off” and do something else than work. Took me a whole month of not working and just enjoying stuff to rewire my brain to that healthy relationship you describe. I don’t believe retiring early is necessary, but this lifestyle definitely requires a on-your-own-time job.
- mathgladiator 5y ago
  It's strange. On one level, I've reached a degree of mastery with computing and leadership, so should I use this knowledge? Or... what if I just started painting. I answered the question of what I would paint. I'd focus and paint dragons versus solo man in every day tasks. In some form, a form of solo therapy dealing with the internal hero journey that I have been on with my career. The key mistake that I feel I have made is focusing on goals... the slaying of the dragon. But, what happens when you slay the dragon? find a bigger dragon? Keep going? I've been haunted by the David Chou JRE ( https://youtu.be/j7T6__UbhBI?t=11323 https://youtu.be/j7T6__UbhBI?t=11323 ) in relation to Anthony Bourdain.
N00bN00b 5y ago
It's not wrong. Life is ultimately meaningless. I'm doing the same thing. Except that I understand that I was able to do so because I'm considerably more resourceful than average. I personally think that gives me the responsibility to at least improve the lives of a couple of people. Especially because it's relatively easy for me, compared to how hard most people have it on planet earth. But if you just got the money from your parents or something, even that reasoning doesn't apply to you. Most people really don't add much more to history than hanging out and making sure their DNA is passed on to another generation. Nothing wrong with being one of them. You might end up depressed due to boredom and lack of purpose, but that's easily fixable with antidepressants.

cammil 5y ago

We're really taking about happiness here aren't we?

holoduke 5y ago

Wealth is when you feel free in your head. When feel comfortable with your doings. And when you are surrounded by good people. I know how it is to have a very good income. It makes life very pleasant the first years, but you get used to it. And money can and to some degree in my case destroy a lot of things. For example exchanging a family for a new girl. Partying with the richest and forgetting your old friends. The trick is to stay conversative and don't fall for the cool VIP life.