13 ms·

The Fallacy of Money As A Means

158 points by scottbrit 13y ago

johnjlocke 13y ago
This article is on point. Money is a flow, it comes and goes, and the tighter you grip to it, the harder it is to gather. The hardest thing to do is make up your own mind, without worrying about what other people think of you.
timmm 13y ago
Financial independence. Starting a profitable company is an interesting challenge. Not having to worry about money. Providing value to the world. Enjoying the intellectually stimulating challenge of programming. Working remotely and on a self defined schedule. Having the reach associated with web business (My customers literally come from all over the world). Being a self made man. Being able to call the shots for my own company and as a result sink or swim. There's a million reasons why I want to start a web company. And I don't think I'm lying to myself about any of them. If it was all about money I would be working on perfecting my pitch and just focus on getting an investment.
calinet6 13y ago
This is a generally short-sighted article, that looks inward but not at the bigger picture. I want to make a lot of money because I want to start a family, and I want them to have the best life and the best opportunities available. Not to be spoiled, but simply to have a good life. And that's just the start. I want to make money so I can help people. To be able to invest in things which might cure diseases, solve hunger, produce cleaner cheaper energy. Things which might have an opportunity to drive humanity forward. I want to make money so that I can change the world. Not in the superficial way that people think you mean when you say that, but in real ways; in ways that create true value for humanity. Things that might drive us closer to a star-trek-esque free-energy economy. This is what people don't understand about money. Some people want it because it has the power to do a lot of things. It is a measure of value, and you can use that value to create more value. It might spiral so high that you don't even know what to do with it anymore; and that's okay, because all it means is that you've produced value and created something real. If I have billions of dollars when I die, I won't care if I lose it. The real reward was the creation of which it was an accidental result. Travel? Nice things? Acceptance? Popularity? You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them. I noticed you have this on your first list: "create the biggest impact possible?" But you never responded to it. It's because it's the real reason. Money is a means to create the biggest impact possible. It is a means to create. Full stop.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them. Have you seriously never met these people who think this? Hell, I've been in those shoes.
  - calinet6 13y ago
    Right: they're children. *Edit: Okay, sorry, "children" is a little harsh. You get what I mean. Of course we all want financial independence, security, and the means to not have to worry about where we eat for dinner every night. Great. You can have that, and do more also. Look at pg—in addition to I'm certain a comfortable life, he also invests in all of you and helps create things of value. Look at what Elon Musk is doing: SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity—they're all a means to advance civilization in leaps and bounds. Fucking awesome. Will he make a lot of money in the process? Probably, if he's successful at it. But I guarantee you that's not why he's doing it (incidentally I think that's a huge reason he might be successful, also). If you're not doing big things like that, you can. Why not? You need a bankroll to do big things. You don't get there by vilifying money and just wanting small things for yourself—even deep things like happiness or self-respect or spirituality. I feel that is a somewhat childish self-centered idea. You're saying "what can money do for me?" The answer in this article is "You don't need money to get those things you want for yourself." Well, buster, it's not for me: it's for the world, it's for advancement, it's for creation. Money gives me no great desire in itself, but the advancement of society certainly does, and it clearly does for others too, and that's a good thing.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      Calling people children because they want different things out of life than you is rather, well, immature.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      "Child's play" usually connotes a sense of ease that, uh, isn't actually available to everyone. If you were correct, then everyone over the age of 20 would have a completely fulfilled life and would only care about money for the sake of making the world a better place. You might be shocked to discover that not everyone is like you. Not everyone feels sufficiently fulfilled in their own life. Indeed, some people feel that their fulfillment may come from "the advancement of society", oddly enough. But are they chasing the advancement of society for its own sake, or are they chasing it for their own self-esteem? I'd personally like to refactor the entirety of society. But, you know, that's childish and it's also just me.
jacoblyles 13y ago
I once asked people to choose between 1) Making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness 2) Leading a content, good, happy, and unremarkable life Everyone in the Valley chooses (1)
- briancaw2 13y ago
  Next time ask them to choose between: 1) The very slim possibility of making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness. 2) The pretty good chance that you can lead a fairly good, fairly happy, fairly content, but generally unremakable life.
  - jacoblyles 13y ago
    yes, your modification is a lot more realistic.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  I don't if that is a Valley thing though. Many people, particularly intellectuals would choose the first. However, let's be honest how many of those Valley startups are on a path to contribute anything remotely close to that level, even if they were maximally successful? Many of them are like "We're changing the way people sell houses" or "We are disrupting the auto-insurance industry" and that's fine but it's hardly the stuff of Newton or Leibniz. So if you take different point from the article, it may make sense to attempt to achieve whatever your goal is another way than slaving away for 3 years on some "Growth Hacker" startup that goes nowhere, because, again, it's not going to get books written about you 200 years from now. Or not.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Not me. Let someone else be the hero.
- ramchip 13y ago
  How old were the people you asked? I think this may the important factor.
addlepate 13y ago
Sweet sanity.
ibudiallo 13y ago
Before you get the money, your goal is to change the world and make the biggest impact. When you get it, your priorities change. You sometimes realize it takes more than money to make an impact. You may still make a difference but not the way you had planned, and but without money you would still be dreaming unrealistically.
MarkHarmon 13y ago
Money is just a symbol of value. Who doesn't want to be highly valued. People love coming up with grand reason for justifying their desire for massive amounts of money. I suspect most people, deep down inside, just want the secure feeling that having tons of money provides. It's your license to freedom.
dnautics 13y ago
"I’m talking about becoming someone with strong moral fiber, a zeal for life, and complete comfort in who they are and what they’re all about." I think that this is exactly not what you want to do to find a life partner. Whether you are a man or a woman, if you do this, you will find that (almost) all of your potential partners are shallow and extremely disappointing. Moreover, the people you are attracted to will be afraid of getting into a relationship precisely because they are, rightfully, afraid of disappointing you, or, more likely, afraid of feeling disappointed in themselves. You might get lucky, and it would help to be superficially attractive, if you choose to try to meet members of the opposite (or same) sex by improving your inner self. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to be a better person, I'm just saying, it's terrible dating advice.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  Huh? So you're suggesting setting the bar low for your inner-self just so you can avoid intimidating partners of a lower standard? That makes no sense to me. If I were single (which I'm not, because I have a satisfying relationship built on mutual admiration), I would want people of low aspirations to self-select themselves out of my dating pool.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    Why? People with "low aspirations" are not necessarily bad people, nor unsuitable mates. Everyone needs something different in their lives. All I'm saying is that "self-improvement for the sake of dating" is terrible advice. Most people want to go on dates with people who are attractive, and self-improvement is often an anti-pattern for that. Yes, we'd like to think that everyone has real standards (versus superficial ones), we'd probably even like to think that we set real, personality standards for ourselves, but that doesn't get you out meeting people, and it can be extremely intimidating when you actually do. It's merely bad advice because that's not what people are looking for. Even people who might intellectually think "oh, I'm looking for a good guy/good gal" are not six times out of ten (that's a made-up statistic)
    - 13y ago
shurcooL 13y ago
I don't want a lot of money. I would like just enough to afford shelter, food and internet, so I can not die and keep working on making software development better.
- evincarofautumn 13y ago
  Following the article, maybe that falls into the category of “autonomy over your time”. I don’t normally think about money at all unless someone reminds me by asking me to pay for food, rent, bills, whatever—it’s just a means to keep me fed, programming, and travelling to see my girlfriend.
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    Yep.
Felix21 13y ago
When you get down to the core, there are many reasons one might want to start a company: Freedom, Legacy, Philanthropy and Charity work, Fame, Superiority, You just enjoy creating value, To scratch an itch?, Sex... Maybe? E.T.C ... And you are right that we need to find out exactly what our motivations are and then truly accept and admit it.. Next, optimise your company, life and decisions so that you can achieve those goals otherwise you'll end up miserable, confused and un-satisfied. Starting a company might not always be the best way to satisfy our desires but in some cases (like if all you desire is FREEDOM), there is no better way to satisfy that desire than to start a company. And while money cant solve all problems (it solves a lot of problems) it makes living with said problems (and also solving said problems) a whole lot easier.
babesh 13y ago
Most people are going to have children eventually even if they don't have them right now. If you are thinking ahead, you best be investing before you have children. Most people want a certain quality of life that getting more and more expensive: a safe neighborhood to live in, decent schools for kids, healthy food to eat, some free time.
- danielweber 13y ago
  Usually busting your ass "now" will give you more flexibility "later."
danielweber 13y ago
I like his list of goals for money. I don't like the way he just says "do something else" to achieve them. A lot of them involve making other people happy, which is something you cannot ever do. You are not in charge of other people. Of course, there is no guarantee that by the time you have money it will still make you attractive to the appropriate sex, or earn you the respect of your peers. It does have a very good track record, though.
cgag 13y ago
To buy my freedom.
- chadgeidel 13y ago
  Seriously. It's amazing to me that this idea doesn't enter folks' minds. I would love to do my current job for 50% of the pay and work 6 months out of the year and take 6 months vacation (yes, I know the numbers would be a little different). This is not an option. You either do temp work/contracting work (a giant PITA IMHO) or you "man up" and work 40-50 hour weeks with 2 weeks of vacation.
  - babesh 13y ago
    Its because of the competition. For instance, if you do that, you have half the pay and if you want to buy a house (limited supply in Silicon Valley) then people with a full income will outcompete you for the same house. That's also what is driving up the housing prices.
bdreadz 13y ago
Seriously this article just angers me. What about the person that wants to make some good money while also enjoying the process. Wanting nice things and seeks financial freedom so as to provide a exceptional living for him/herself as well as for their family. I dream big. I am realistic and I take time to enjoy what I have. It's not just reaching the summit that will be that moment. The journey is fantastic and it's the journey to that exceptional lifestyle that is all part of it. This article just comes at it from the entrepreneur that is only coming at it for having the ends justify the means. However, a lot of people have jobs like that. Heck I'd wager to say more than 50% easily of the population have jobs like. So I'd say to the entrepreneur that does slog away at something that he/she really isn't into and does end up with at least the experience. That's awesome. Maybe just the process of starting a business albeit tech one at first gives them experience. That down the line they are already ahead to possibly start some type of another business. The more I write the more I feel like I'm just feeding this troll.
- autotravis 13y ago
  Troll? So now people that honestly want to help others and offer advice are trolls? He wrote the article because his introspection lead/is leading to a better life for himself. Is sharing that with other people such a bad thing?
- nrivadeneira 13y ago
  I think this point isn't made enough. Everyone wants to "make a dent in the universe" and excelling for the simple sake of excelling is almost looked down upon. There's something to be said about the enjoying the process - getting enjoyment out of working to be better. Money is just one of many measurements of "better". I want to make money because I enjoy climbing the god damned mountain.
makerops 13y ago
I can not speak for anyone but myself obviously, but I enjoy the visceral response to the highs and lows of doing, building, and putting things out there for the general public. There aren't many drugs that can recreate the high of earning your first dollar from something you have created.
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
Money may or may not be the path to happiness, but I find it hard to believe that true happiness is going to found in trying to convince others that it isn't. To quote the author, I'm sure there is "a much more direct path" to living a fulfilling life than focusing one's energy on asking others to question their true motivations and suggesting that if they're "brutally honest with themselves," they'll come to the same conclusions as the author. Ironically, much of the time, public displays of introspection like this are driven by the acceptance-seeking that the author is apparently not very fond of.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Well, it's just armchair moralizing. Who is to say having wealth and bottle service, and so on and so forth does not lead to happiness for anyone?
sethbannon 13y ago
tl;dr: "Chasing money is not usually the most efficient or enjoyable route to happiness. So does it make sense to waste our lives doing things we honestly don’t love to make it so we can eventually.…uhh [insert something that will eventually make you happy here]?"
kidcoach 13y ago
Where is the 'payoff student loans' bullet point.
acjohnson55 13y ago
I agree, and it's interesting to see the resistance around here. I think a lot of people don't really want to take a hard look at their own motivations because they're afraid they might not like what they see. I don't think the illusion of money-driven happiness is at all limited to the startup world. The rat race exists in a whole lot of other careers too--law, medicine, engineering, finance, showbiz, and so on. I think most people chase money based on the perception that it will raise them to some higher plane of existence. But the reality is that every time you break into some new level, there's always just another level waiting above you, enticing you to double down. This article has a strong point: instead of chasing abstract advancement, figure out what it actually is that you want, and then strategize how to get it. And better yet, strategize how you can enjoy the journey. You might actually achieve definitive satisfaction that way and also be able to look back on your life and not feel as though half of it was spent in an unfulfilling chase.
ttty 13y ago
What if I want it because I hate to wake up early in the morning and go to work?
jasonkostempski 13y ago
"It is because you want total autonomy over your time?" Would be my #1 goal. The alternative "Find a career that is already what you’d consistently be doing..." is silly. Given complete control over my time I wouldn't be doing much consistently let alone for a career's length of time.
mikeocool 13y ago
> He tells people “he likes building things” because that seems to be a publicly acceptable rationale for building a tech company…but super secretly he just sees starting a tech company as a means to generating an inordinate amount of wealth quickly I have a hard time believing that anyone who is only fueled by money and does not truly enjoy 'building things' would last all that long starting a company. I know a great many writers. Not many people get rich writing (if $1 billion tech company exits are black swans, then JK Rowling is like a rainbow swan or something), and yet there are still people who choose to write. They truly enjoy writing, they make their lives work even though they no they're not very likely to end up with a million dollar book deal. I get the feeling from most of the really great people I've met in the tech world that they would be 'building things' even if it there wasn't the seemingly realistic possibility of millions of dollars. They're not in it for the end game of travel or sex, they're in it because they're only happy 'building things.'
joonix 13y ago
This article might be relevant if you're 20 years old. For the other parts of your life, when you want to have a family, and a spouse (whom you don't spend all your time arguing about money with), and also enjoy the nice parts of life like traveling, a comfortable home in a good area with good schools, the ability to change whatever you're doing if you're unhappy, to get great healthcare should you need it, etc etc... you need wealth. Period. Btw, a high income, high expense lifestyle is not "rich" because you are a slave to your job. Wealth is an entirely different world all together.
niklaslogren 13y ago
This article really resonates with me. I've come to roughly the same conclusion as the author; namely, that I should focus on figuring out my real motivations and work to fulfill them, rather than blindly follow the "more-money-more-happiness" default route provided for all of us. I find it interesting that other commenters react so strongly to this article. I think the article is a sobering one, and that the author makes a good point. After thinking about it, if you come to the conclusion that more money _is_ what you need to fulfill your goals, then by all means go ahead. Introspection is never wrong.
CurtMonash 13y ago
When I worked on Wall Street, it was common to have a "number" in mind -- a level of wealth one wanted to earn, after which one would retire. By way of contrast, I got out after I'd only worked there about 5 years, with enough savings to support me for only a few more. Frankly, I wish I'd stuck with it and solved the "earning money" problem for life for once and for all. I.e., while I'm generally in agreement with this line of discussion, there are also plenty of cases to just work at something not too unpleasant in return for the money it provides one.
- throwaway10wsit 13y ago
  (throwaway account) I have been working for 10 years as a software developer and manager of software development teams for a large investment bank. When I got started, and for the first 5 years or so, I thought that I could earn enough to save up and "solve the 'earning money' problem" doing this. Now, I don't think that's possible on this track. I thought I'd get there in the beginning because I was doing very well at the job and getting more and more recognition and responsibility. Large bonuses were being given out to developers, and firms competed hard to get good ones. But then came the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and everything changed. The pay was reduced a lot--I have never made as much money as I did in 2006, despite having gotten a title promotion, and a larger role with much more responsibility, since then. New regulations have created a much more bureaucratic, administration-obsessed environment than I was accustomed to, making it much less pleasant for anyone interested in building and hacking. So now I'm stuck at a local maximum--I feel like there could be a much better situation out there for me, but no direct step I could take to put myself in it. I still make enough that it would be tough to match my current salary outside of wall street, but the work environment has degenerated so much that I hate going to work, despite this taking most of my waking time and energy. So I have to make a choice: I can stay at a my current job, with its comfortable-but-not-stellar income and its ever-more-unpleasant work environment, or I could jump to another position (be it a new job or attempting to strike out on my own and develop a business and/or consulting) that could be more fulfilling, but much lower-paid, at least initially. To those who would advise me to strike out on my own with a startup or consulting: my situation is complicated by my need to support my wife, who has a condition that would make it prohibitively expensive to get her the medical care she needs without employer-provided health insurance. (Nobody would insure us on the individual market--not at a price I could pay if I were just starting out on a business or consulting venture and attempting to live off my savings until it got off the ground, at least.) I know this is not the worst problem in the world to have. A huge number of people would love to be in my shoes, and I can look at it from a larger perspective and see that I'm still damn lucky to be where I am and have what I have. But I'm not anywhere near able to "solve the 'earning money' problem" and I don't think I will be anytime soon. So I still find myself wishing I'd taken a leap earlier. Of course, if I were a trader or had some other position in the actual business to make the REAL money, then it might have been a different story.
dgreensp 13y ago
If you don't care about changing the world or creating a great company or building stuff, you probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur. But if you're going to pick a fake motivation for your pitch deck, "I just want to build stuff" is pretty lame. Do people really say that when it isn't even true?
- evincarofautumn 13y ago
  “I just want to build stuff” is often true if qualified: “…that a lot of people use”, “…that makes people’s lives better”, “…to further my plans for world domination”, &c.
  - dgreensp 13y ago
    I was reacting to this: Guy decides he wants to be a tech entrepreneur. He tells people “he likes building things” because that seems to be a publicly acceptable rationale for building a tech company…but super secretly he just sees starting a tech company as a means to generating an inordinate amount of wealth quickly in a way that’s more enjoyable than playing excel like a keyboard. I think many or most of us, especially in YC circles, do start a company because we "like building things" -- not literally just that, but it's a part of our motivation or identity to get inherent pleasure from building things. If you don't, though, I see no reason to fake it. It may be cool and trendy to be a maker at heart, but it's certainly no prerequisite for starting a company. We've really come full circle if we've gone from legitimizing and celebrating hackers and makers as founders to the point where people are posing as them to better fit a script. It sounds like cargo cult entrepreneurship or Zuck mania.
mikebludd 13y ago
when young, always go for the money then you can retire early and work on your life long dream of being of a Tuperware sales man.
Zimahl 13y ago
I think for me what it comes down to is 'F U money'. I will feel successful when I have enough money earned and saved that any storm can be weathered, even if I decide to walk into said storm (leave via an 'F U', hence the name). It might not be a reality. It might not even be attainable (maybe the bar keeps moving), but that's my criteria.
6ren 13y ago
The journey is the destination. It is better to travel than to arrive. Getting there is half the fun. Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul *becomes*; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm
navyad 13y ago
money is a important thing in life which may give you a "good life" but this "good life" is different from person to person like a person like to have a smart-phone and consider it as a part of "good life" whereas another person just wants to have any ordinary phone and consider it as a part of good life. The point is one needs to know what he wanted money for, not he other way round. It has to means, not end of life
anoncow 13y ago
I am in my early 30s. Do not have much in savings, have a job that takes up much of my time but won't really save me enough. I dô not know what my aim in life is. I have been thinking hard but I can't seem to pick one. I can rule out some, but I can't rule them out completely. Family: I have little interest in starting a family. Where I live, overpopulation is a problem. I don't like driving. There isn't even enough place to park cars. Why does everyone have to buy a car? Money: I have little interest in making a lot of money. Growing up, my family had enough money, but I saw how my parents really didn't have time for much else than making moey. Name, Fame and acceptance: I think about this sometimes. My college peers are apparently well settled. Higher up in the job/salary/business/family heirarchy than I can hope reaching in my lifetime. Makes me sad a little thinking they must be looking down on me, but then I realise that it doesn't realy matter. I wouldn't have been happier if I had made the choices that they did in life and I wouldn't be happy chasing success just because I can have acceptance from my peers. Because all of us are individuals with separate lives. But all in all comparing myself to my peers makes me unhappy transiently, even when I know that I don't hate their success and being happy for them makes me happy. Happiness: Sometimes I can pinpoint what makes me happy. Like when I am working on a hobby application,which turns out better than I expected. Or when I find a smarter way to implment a certain feature. Other times it is not that easy to say what makes me happy. Building something so I can be the next facebook or tumblr doesn't make me happy. Perhaps because I know that it is impossible. A lot of the happiness problems is because of the need for social acceptance. I don't grudge my peers their success, but sometimes you feel the eyes of society scurutinizing you and judging you as a failure and that is what makes me unhappy, but only transiently. Because, I know that what society thinks about me is not that important. For eg. Currently it is important enough for me to be posting anonymously online, but not important enough to make me decide what I want to do in life. But eventually thinking about the meaning of life does not lead to answers. Perhaps it is a difficult thing to understand. Or perhaps everyone else has it right and I am afraid of trying and losing. I understand that the biological reason of life is procreation. But I understand little else. So I generally try to live in the present and try to save some money so I don't become a slave to my current job and eventually hope to be self employed, make enough money, not hurt others and maybe help others a little.
Udo 13y ago
Money is not about peer acceptance, power, or "having nice things". Money is freedom. This only dawned on me when I had absolutely nothing. Without money, you can't really do anything, all your choices have been taken from you. As you start accumulating money, more and more doors open up, and you are increasingly free to do what you like. Money is, almost by definition, the abstraction of means. There's probably an upper cap for this effect, but I'd argue that 99% of us will never reach that.
- soup10 13y ago
  This rings really true. It makes me sad when high income earners don't understand this, and live at or above their means. Instead of living below your means and stress free, many people get trapped in a sick consumerist loop where they spend at their means and/or take on debt. The enlightened know that the stress reduction of never having money problems is far better than living a life of maximum comfort/extravagance. I wouldn't say that not middle-income means you have no freedom. It's more about perspective. If you view money as an enormous burden on your freedom to do whatever you want, then it becomes that. But you can do whatever you want, regardless. There's no requirement to have "fuck you money" to have a "fuck you, i'm not going to take your shit" attitude about life and relationships.
  - evincarofautumn 13y ago
    > The enlightened know that the stress reduction of never having money problems is far better than living a life of maximum comfort/extravagance. Sound advice. Even though my income has happily grown over the past year, I’m trying to keep my value perception of money as close as possible to where it was when I was a poor student, to maintain my sanity as much as anything else.
- Swizec 13y ago
  This, so much this. My outlook on life is unimaginably different now that I have a few thousand euro lying around my bank account than it was right after I burned my last startup and I was forced to borrow shampoo. Money == freedom.
edanm 13y ago
Great idea. Really, sincerely - I love it. All the conversations I have with people considering entrepreneurship start with "what are your goals... ok, what are your real goals." Goal clarification is incredibly important. I did have a problem with almost all of the rest of the article though - the Author dismisses offhandedly many, many goals which are quite legitimate, and tries to build a case that money is not really necessary for most of the things people try to achieve. Maybe that's true, but there are plenty of cases where money is important: - I know several "effective altruists" [1], who work hard to make the most amount of money, and donate as much of it to charity as possible. This is to help other people, not to achieve a personal sense of worth, and very much depends on making as much money as possible. - People who want the freedom of not having to work, but don't yet know what they could do that won't feel like work. It's always a nice sentiment to try and work at something which you love doing, and is even possible in many cases... but ask many 25 year olds what kind of work they'd still enjoy doing at 40, and not many will be able to tell you for sure. etc. [1]: See e.g. http://80000hours.org/ http://80000hours.org/
deleted 13y ago
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novaleaf 13y ago
the author tries to cover himself by saying "people without families to support" but of course most people plan to have a family someday... when that's taken into consideration, I think the author's claim of "a wasted life" seems extremely naive and misguided
room271 13y ago
I feel like a lot of people commenting here are correctly identifying that being dirt poor sucks. But they are then confusing this with a general linear (or near linear) relationship between money and happiness. If you are doing a regular skilled job in a Western country I would argue you will have enough money to pursue happiness/not be overly blocked by lack of wealth.

158 points by scottbrit 13y ago

This article is on point. Money is a flow, it comes and goes, and the tighter you grip to it, the harder it is to gather. The hardest thing to do is make up your own mind, without worrying about what other people think of you.

timmm 13y ago

Financial independence. Starting a profitable company is an interesting challenge. Not having to worry about money. Providing value to the world. Enjoying the intellectually stimulating challenge of programming. Working remotely and on a self defined schedule. Having the reach associated with web business (My customers literally come from all over the world). Being a self made man. Being able to call the shots for my own company and as a result sink or swim. There's a million reasons why I want to start a web company. And I don't think I'm lying to myself about any of them. If it was all about money I would be working on perfecting my pitch and just focus on getting an investment.

calinet6 13y ago

This is a generally short-sighted article, that looks inward but not at the bigger picture. I want to make a lot of money because I want to start a family, and I want them to have the best life and the best opportunities available. Not to be spoiled, but simply to have a good life. And that's just the start. I want to make money so I can help people. To be able to invest in things which might cure diseases, solve hunger, produce cleaner cheaper energy. Things which might have an opportunity to drive humanity forward. I want to make money so that I can change the world. Not in the superficial way that people think you mean when you say that, but in real ways; in ways that create true value for humanity. Things that might drive us closer to a star-trek-esque free-energy economy. This is what people don't understand about money. Some people want it because it has the power to do a lot of things. It is a measure of value, and you can use that value to create more value. It might spiral so high that you don't even know what to do with it anymore; and that's okay, because all it means is that you've produced value and created something real. If I have billions of dollars when I die, I won't care if I lose it. The real reward was the creation of which it was an accidental result. Travel? Nice things? Acceptance? Popularity? You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them. I noticed you have this on your first list: "create the biggest impact possible?" But you never responded to it. It's because it's the real reason. Money is a means to create the biggest impact possible. It is a means to create. Full stop.

saraid216 13y ago
> You think that's why people want money? Child's play, all of them. Have you seriously never met these people who think this? Hell, I've been in those shoes.
- calinet6 13y ago
  Right: they're children. *Edit: Okay, sorry, "children" is a little harsh. You get what I mean. Of course we all want financial independence, security, and the means to not have to worry about where we eat for dinner every night. Great. You can have that, and do more also. Look at pg—in addition to I'm certain a comfortable life, he also invests in all of you and helps create things of value. Look at what Elon Musk is doing: SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity—they're all a means to advance civilization in leaps and bounds. Fucking awesome. Will he make a lot of money in the process? Probably, if he's successful at it. But I guarantee you that's not why he's doing it (incidentally I think that's a huge reason he might be successful, also). If you're not doing big things like that, you can. Why not? You need a bankroll to do big things. You don't get there by vilifying money and just wanting small things for yourself—even deep things like happiness or self-respect or spirituality. I feel that is a somewhat childish self-centered idea. You're saying "what can money do for me?" The answer in this article is "You don't need money to get those things you want for yourself." Well, buster, it's not for me: it's for the world, it's for advancement, it's for creation. Money gives me no great desire in itself, but the advancement of society certainly does, and it clearly does for others too, and that's a good thing.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    Calling people children because they want different things out of life than you is rather, well, immature.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    "Child's play" usually connotes a sense of ease that, uh, isn't actually available to everyone. If you were correct, then everyone over the age of 20 would have a completely fulfilled life and would only care about money for the sake of making the world a better place. You might be shocked to discover that not everyone is like you. Not everyone feels sufficiently fulfilled in their own life. Indeed, some people feel that their fulfillment may come from "the advancement of society", oddly enough. But are they chasing the advancement of society for its own sake, or are they chasing it for their own self-esteem? I'd personally like to refactor the entirety of society. But, you know, that's childish and it's also just me.

jacoblyles 13y ago

I once asked people to choose between 1) Making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness 2) Leading a content, good, happy, and unremarkable life Everyone in the Valley chooses (1)

briancaw2 13y ago
Next time ask them to choose between: 1) The very slim possibility of making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness. 2) The pretty good chance that you can lead a fairly good, fairly happy, fairly content, but generally unremakable life.
- jacoblyles 13y ago
  yes, your modification is a lot more realistic.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
I don't if that is a Valley thing though. Many people, particularly intellectuals would choose the first. However, let's be honest how many of those Valley startups are on a path to contribute anything remotely close to that level, even if they were maximally successful? Many of them are like "We're changing the way people sell houses" or "We are disrupting the auto-insurance industry" and that's fine but it's hardly the stuff of Newton or Leibniz. So if you take different point from the article, it may make sense to attempt to achieve whatever your goal is another way than slaving away for 3 years on some "Growth Hacker" startup that goes nowhere, because, again, it's not going to get books written about you 200 years from now. Or not.
jamesaguilar 13y ago
Not me. Let someone else be the hero.
ramchip 13y ago
How old were the people you asked? I think this may the important factor.

addlepate 13y ago

Sweet sanity.

ibudiallo 13y ago

Before you get the money, your goal is to change the world and make the biggest impact. When you get it, your priorities change. You sometimes realize it takes more than money to make an impact. You may still make a difference but not the way you had planned, and but without money you would still be dreaming unrealistically.

MarkHarmon 13y ago

Money is just a symbol of value. Who doesn't want to be highly valued. People love coming up with grand reason for justifying their desire for massive amounts of money. I suspect most people, deep down inside, just want the secure feeling that having tons of money provides. It's your license to freedom.

dnautics 13y ago

"I’m talking about becoming someone with strong moral fiber, a zeal for life, and complete comfort in who they are and what they’re all about." I think that this is exactly not what you want to do to find a life partner. Whether you are a man or a woman, if you do this, you will find that (almost) all of your potential partners are shallow and extremely disappointing. Moreover, the people you are attracted to will be afraid of getting into a relationship precisely because they are, rightfully, afraid of disappointing you, or, more likely, afraid of feeling disappointed in themselves. You might get lucky, and it would help to be superficially attractive, if you choose to try to meet members of the opposite (or same) sex by improving your inner self. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to be a better person, I'm just saying, it's terrible dating advice.

acjohnson55 13y ago
Huh? So you're suggesting setting the bar low for your inner-self just so you can avoid intimidating partners of a lower standard? That makes no sense to me. If I were single (which I'm not, because I have a satisfying relationship built on mutual admiration), I would want people of low aspirations to self-select themselves out of my dating pool.
- dnautics 13y ago
  Why? People with "low aspirations" are not necessarily bad people, nor unsuitable mates. Everyone needs something different in their lives. All I'm saying is that "self-improvement for the sake of dating" is terrible advice. Most people want to go on dates with people who are attractive, and self-improvement is often an anti-pattern for that. Yes, we'd like to think that everyone has real standards (versus superficial ones), we'd probably even like to think that we set real, personality standards for ourselves, but that doesn't get you out meeting people, and it can be extremely intimidating when you actually do. It's merely bad advice because that's not what people are looking for. Even people who might intellectually think "oh, I'm looking for a good guy/good gal" are not six times out of ten (that's a made-up statistic)
  - 13y ago

shurcooL 13y ago

I don't want a lot of money. I would like just enough to afford shelter, food and internet, so I can not die and keep working on making software development better.

evincarofautumn 13y ago
Following the article, maybe that falls into the category of “autonomy over your time”. I don’t normally think about money at all unless someone reminds me by asking me to pay for food, rent, bills, whatever—it’s just a means to keep me fed, programming, and travelling to see my girlfriend.
- shurcooL 13y ago
  Yep.

Felix21 13y ago

When you get down to the core, there are many reasons one might want to start a company: Freedom, Legacy, Philanthropy and Charity work, Fame, Superiority, You just enjoy creating value, To scratch an itch?, Sex... Maybe? E.T.C ... And you are right that we need to find out exactly what our motivations are and then truly accept and admit it.. Next, optimise your company, life and decisions so that you can achieve those goals otherwise you'll end up miserable, confused and un-satisfied. Starting a company might not always be the best way to satisfy our desires but in some cases (like if all you desire is FREEDOM), there is no better way to satisfy that desire than to start a company. And while money cant solve all problems (it solves a lot of problems) it makes living with said problems (and also solving said problems) a whole lot easier.

babesh 13y ago

Most people are going to have children eventually even if they don't have them right now. If you are thinking ahead, you best be investing before you have children. Most people want a certain quality of life that getting more and more expensive: a safe neighborhood to live in, decent schools for kids, healthy food to eat, some free time.

danielweber 13y ago
Usually busting your ass "now" will give you more flexibility "later."

danielweber 13y ago

I like his list of goals for money. I don't like the way he just says "do something else" to achieve them. A lot of them involve making other people happy, which is something you cannot ever do. You are not in charge of other people. Of course, there is no guarantee that by the time you have money it will still make you attractive to the appropriate sex, or earn you the respect of your peers. It does have a very good track record, though.

cgag 13y ago

To buy my freedom.

chadgeidel 13y ago
Seriously. It's amazing to me that this idea doesn't enter folks' minds. I would love to do my current job for 50% of the pay and work 6 months out of the year and take 6 months vacation (yes, I know the numbers would be a little different). This is not an option. You either do temp work/contracting work (a giant PITA IMHO) or you "man up" and work 40-50 hour weeks with 2 weeks of vacation.
- babesh 13y ago
  Its because of the competition. For instance, if you do that, you have half the pay and if you want to buy a house (limited supply in Silicon Valley) then people with a full income will outcompete you for the same house. That's also what is driving up the housing prices.

bdreadz 13y ago

Seriously this article just angers me. What about the person that wants to make some good money while also enjoying the process. Wanting nice things and seeks financial freedom so as to provide a exceptional living for him/herself as well as for their family. I dream big. I am realistic and I take time to enjoy what I have. It's not just reaching the summit that will be that moment. The journey is fantastic and it's the journey to that exceptional lifestyle that is all part of it. This article just comes at it from the entrepreneur that is only coming at it for having the ends justify the means. However, a lot of people have jobs like that. Heck I'd wager to say more than 50% easily of the population have jobs like. So I'd say to the entrepreneur that does slog away at something that he/she really isn't into and does end up with at least the experience. That's awesome. Maybe just the process of starting a business albeit tech one at first gives them experience. That down the line they are already ahead to possibly start some type of another business. The more I write the more I feel like I'm just feeding this troll.

autotravis 13y ago
Troll? So now people that honestly want to help others and offer advice are trolls? He wrote the article because his introspection lead/is leading to a better life for himself. Is sharing that with other people such a bad thing?
nrivadeneira 13y ago
I think this point isn't made enough. Everyone wants to "make a dent in the universe" and excelling for the simple sake of excelling is almost looked down upon. There's something to be said about the enjoying the process - getting enjoyment out of working to be better. Money is just one of many measurements of "better". I want to make money because I enjoy climbing the god damned mountain.

makerops 13y ago

I can not speak for anyone but myself obviously, but I enjoy the visceral response to the highs and lows of doing, building, and putting things out there for the general public. There aren't many drugs that can recreate the high of earning your first dollar from something you have created.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

Money may or may not be the path to happiness, but I find it hard to believe that true happiness is going to found in trying to convince others that it isn't. To quote the author, I'm sure there is "a much more direct path" to living a fulfilling life than focusing one's energy on asking others to question their true motivations and suggesting that if they're "brutally honest with themselves," they'll come to the same conclusions as the author. Ironically, much of the time, public displays of introspection like this are driven by the acceptance-seeking that the author is apparently not very fond of.

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Well, it's just armchair moralizing. Who is to say having wealth and bottle service, and so on and so forth does not lead to happiness for anyone?

sethbannon 13y ago

tl;dr: "Chasing money is not usually the most efficient or enjoyable route to happiness. So does it make sense to waste our lives doing things we honestly don’t love to make it so we can eventually.…uhh [insert something that will eventually make you happy here]?"

kidcoach 13y ago

Where is the 'payoff student loans' bullet point.

acjohnson55 13y ago

I agree, and it's interesting to see the resistance around here. I think a lot of people don't really want to take a hard look at their own motivations because they're afraid they might not like what they see. I don't think the illusion of money-driven happiness is at all limited to the startup world. The rat race exists in a whole lot of other careers too--law, medicine, engineering, finance, showbiz, and so on. I think most people chase money based on the perception that it will raise them to some higher plane of existence. But the reality is that every time you break into some new level, there's always just another level waiting above you, enticing you to double down. This article has a strong point: instead of chasing abstract advancement, figure out what it actually is that you want, and then strategize how to get it. And better yet, strategize how you can enjoy the journey. You might actually achieve definitive satisfaction that way and also be able to look back on your life and not feel as though half of it was spent in an unfulfilling chase.

ttty 13y ago

What if I want it because I hate to wake up early in the morning and go to work?

jasonkostempski 13y ago

"It is because you want total autonomy over your time?" Would be my #1 goal. The alternative "Find a career that is already what you’d consistently be doing..." is silly. Given complete control over my time I wouldn't be doing much consistently let alone for a career's length of time.

mikeocool 13y ago

> He tells people “he likes building things” because that seems to be a publicly acceptable rationale for building a tech company…but super secretly he just sees starting a tech company as a means to generating an inordinate amount of wealth quickly I have a hard time believing that anyone who is only fueled by money and does not truly enjoy 'building things' would last all that long starting a company. I know a great many writers. Not many people get rich writing (if $1 billion tech company exits are black swans, then JK Rowling is like a rainbow swan or something), and yet there are still people who choose to write. They truly enjoy writing, they make their lives work even though they no they're not very likely to end up with a million dollar book deal. I get the feeling from most of the really great people I've met in the tech world that they would be 'building things' even if it there wasn't the seemingly realistic possibility of millions of dollars. They're not in it for the end game of travel or sex, they're in it because they're only happy 'building things.'

joonix 13y ago

This article might be relevant if you're 20 years old. For the other parts of your life, when you want to have a family, and a spouse (whom you don't spend all your time arguing about money with), and also enjoy the nice parts of life like traveling, a comfortable home in a good area with good schools, the ability to change whatever you're doing if you're unhappy, to get great healthcare should you need it, etc etc... you need wealth. Period. Btw, a high income, high expense lifestyle is not "rich" because you are a slave to your job. Wealth is an entirely different world all together.

niklaslogren 13y ago

This article really resonates with me. I've come to roughly the same conclusion as the author; namely, that I should focus on figuring out my real motivations and work to fulfill them, rather than blindly follow the "more-money-more-happiness" default route provided for all of us. I find it interesting that other commenters react so strongly to this article. I think the article is a sobering one, and that the author makes a good point. After thinking about it, if you come to the conclusion that more money _is_ what you need to fulfill your goals, then by all means go ahead. Introspection is never wrong.

CurtMonash 13y ago

When I worked on Wall Street, it was common to have a "number" in mind -- a level of wealth one wanted to earn, after which one would retire. By way of contrast, I got out after I'd only worked there about 5 years, with enough savings to support me for only a few more. Frankly, I wish I'd stuck with it and solved the "earning money" problem for life for once and for all. I.e., while I'm generally in agreement with this line of discussion, there are also plenty of cases to just work at something not too unpleasant in return for the money it provides one.

throwaway10wsit 13y ago
(throwaway account) I have been working for 10 years as a software developer and manager of software development teams for a large investment bank. When I got started, and for the first 5 years or so, I thought that I could earn enough to save up and "solve the 'earning money' problem" doing this. Now, I don't think that's possible on this track. I thought I'd get there in the beginning because I was doing very well at the job and getting more and more recognition and responsibility. Large bonuses were being given out to developers, and firms competed hard to get good ones. But then came the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and everything changed. The pay was reduced a lot--I have never made as much money as I did in 2006, despite having gotten a title promotion, and a larger role with much more responsibility, since then. New regulations have created a much more bureaucratic, administration-obsessed environment than I was accustomed to, making it much less pleasant for anyone interested in building and hacking. So now I'm stuck at a local maximum--I feel like there could be a much better situation out there for me, but no direct step I could take to put myself in it. I still make enough that it would be tough to match my current salary outside of wall street, but the work environment has degenerated so much that I hate going to work, despite this taking most of my waking time and energy. So I have to make a choice: I can stay at a my current job, with its comfortable-but-not-stellar income and its ever-more-unpleasant work environment, or I could jump to another position (be it a new job or attempting to strike out on my own and develop a business and/or consulting) that could be more fulfilling, but much lower-paid, at least initially. To those who would advise me to strike out on my own with a startup or consulting: my situation is complicated by my need to support my wife, who has a condition that would make it prohibitively expensive to get her the medical care she needs without employer-provided health insurance. (Nobody would insure us on the individual market--not at a price I could pay if I were just starting out on a business or consulting venture and attempting to live off my savings until it got off the ground, at least.) I know this is not the worst problem in the world to have. A huge number of people would love to be in my shoes, and I can look at it from a larger perspective and see that I'm still damn lucky to be where I am and have what I have. But I'm not anywhere near able to "solve the 'earning money' problem" and I don't think I will be anytime soon. So I still find myself wishing I'd taken a leap earlier. Of course, if I were a trader or had some other position in the actual business to make the REAL money, then it might have been a different story.

dgreensp 13y ago

If you don't care about changing the world or creating a great company or building stuff, you probably shouldn't be an entrepreneur. But if you're going to pick a fake motivation for your pitch deck, "I just want to build stuff" is pretty lame. Do people really say that when it isn't even true?

evincarofautumn 13y ago
“I just want to build stuff” is often true if qualified: “…that a lot of people use”, “…that makes people’s lives better”, “…to further my plans for world domination”, &c.
- dgreensp 13y ago
  I was reacting to this: Guy decides he wants to be a tech entrepreneur. He tells people “he likes building things” because that seems to be a publicly acceptable rationale for building a tech company…but super secretly he just sees starting a tech company as a means to generating an inordinate amount of wealth quickly in a way that’s more enjoyable than playing excel like a keyboard. I think many or most of us, especially in YC circles, do start a company because we "like building things" -- not literally just that, but it's a part of our motivation or identity to get inherent pleasure from building things. If you don't, though, I see no reason to fake it. It may be cool and trendy to be a maker at heart, but it's certainly no prerequisite for starting a company. We've really come full circle if we've gone from legitimizing and celebrating hackers and makers as founders to the point where people are posing as them to better fit a script. It sounds like cargo cult entrepreneurship or Zuck mania.

mikebludd 13y ago

when young, always go for the money then you can retire early and work on your life long dream of being of a Tuperware sales man.

Zimahl 13y ago

I think for me what it comes down to is 'F U money'. I will feel successful when I have enough money earned and saved that any storm can be weathered, even if I decide to walk into said storm (leave via an 'F U', hence the name). It might not be a reality. It might not even be attainable (maybe the bar keeps moving), but that's my criteria.

6ren 13y ago

The journey is the destination. It is better to travel than to arrive. Getting there is half the fun. Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates, that the soul *becomes*; for that for ever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm

navyad 13y ago

money is a important thing in life which may give you a "good life" but this "good life" is different from person to person like a person like to have a smart-phone and consider it as a part of "good life" whereas another person just wants to have any ordinary phone and consider it as a part of good life. The point is one needs to know what he wanted money for, not he other way round. It has to means, not end of life

anoncow 13y ago

I am in my early 30s. Do not have much in savings, have a job that takes up much of my time but won't really save me enough. I dô not know what my aim in life is. I have been thinking hard but I can't seem to pick one. I can rule out some, but I can't rule them out completely. Family: I have little interest in starting a family. Where I live, overpopulation is a problem. I don't like driving. There isn't even enough place to park cars. Why does everyone have to buy a car? Money: I have little interest in making a lot of money. Growing up, my family had enough money, but I saw how my parents really didn't have time for much else than making moey. Name, Fame and acceptance: I think about this sometimes. My college peers are apparently well settled. Higher up in the job/salary/business/family heirarchy than I can hope reaching in my lifetime. Makes me sad a little thinking they must be looking down on me, but then I realise that it doesn't realy matter. I wouldn't have been happier if I had made the choices that they did in life and I wouldn't be happy chasing success just because I can have acceptance from my peers. Because all of us are individuals with separate lives. But all in all comparing myself to my peers makes me unhappy transiently, even when I know that I don't hate their success and being happy for them makes me happy. Happiness: Sometimes I can pinpoint what makes me happy. Like when I am working on a hobby application,which turns out better than I expected. Or when I find a smarter way to implment a certain feature. Other times it is not that easy to say what makes me happy. Building something so I can be the next facebook or tumblr doesn't make me happy. Perhaps because I know that it is impossible. A lot of the happiness problems is because of the need for social acceptance. I don't grudge my peers their success, but sometimes you feel the eyes of society scurutinizing you and judging you as a failure and that is what makes me unhappy, but only transiently. Because, I know that what society thinks about me is not that important. For eg. Currently it is important enough for me to be posting anonymously online, but not important enough to make me decide what I want to do in life. But eventually thinking about the meaning of life does not lead to answers. Perhaps it is a difficult thing to understand. Or perhaps everyone else has it right and I am afraid of trying and losing. I understand that the biological reason of life is procreation. But I understand little else. So I generally try to live in the present and try to save some money so I don't become a slave to my current job and eventually hope to be self employed, make enough money, not hurt others and maybe help others a little.

Udo 13y ago

Money is not about peer acceptance, power, or "having nice things". Money is freedom. This only dawned on me when I had absolutely nothing. Without money, you can't really do anything, all your choices have been taken from you. As you start accumulating money, more and more doors open up, and you are increasingly free to do what you like. Money is, almost by definition, the abstraction of means. There's probably an upper cap for this effect, but I'd argue that 99% of us will never reach that.

soup10 13y ago
This rings really true. It makes me sad when high income earners don't understand this, and live at or above their means. Instead of living below your means and stress free, many people get trapped in a sick consumerist loop where they spend at their means and/or take on debt. The enlightened know that the stress reduction of never having money problems is far better than living a life of maximum comfort/extravagance. I wouldn't say that not middle-income means you have no freedom. It's more about perspective. If you view money as an enormous burden on your freedom to do whatever you want, then it becomes that. But you can do whatever you want, regardless. There's no requirement to have "fuck you money" to have a "fuck you, i'm not going to take your shit" attitude about life and relationships.
- evincarofautumn 13y ago
  > The enlightened know that the stress reduction of never having money problems is far better than living a life of maximum comfort/extravagance. Sound advice. Even though my income has happily grown over the past year, I’m trying to keep my value perception of money as close as possible to where it was when I was a poor student, to maintain my sanity as much as anything else.
Swizec 13y ago
This, so much this. My outlook on life is unimaginably different now that I have a few thousand euro lying around my bank account than it was right after I burned my last startup and I was forced to borrow shampoo. Money == freedom.

edanm 13y ago

Great idea. Really, sincerely - I love it. All the conversations I have with people considering entrepreneurship start with "what are your goals... ok, what are your real goals." Goal clarification is incredibly important. I did have a problem with almost all of the rest of the article though - the Author dismisses offhandedly many, many goals which are quite legitimate, and tries to build a case that money is not really necessary for most of the things people try to achieve. Maybe that's true, but there are plenty of cases where money is important: - I know several "effective altruists" [1], who work hard to make the most amount of money, and donate as much of it to charity as possible. This is to help other people, not to achieve a personal sense of worth, and very much depends on making as much money as possible. - People who want the freedom of not having to work, but don't yet know what they could do that won't feel like work. It's always a nice sentiment to try and work at something which you love doing, and is even possible in many cases... but ask many 25 year olds what kind of work they'd still enjoy doing at 40, and not many will be able to tell you for sure. etc. [1]: See e.g. http://80000hours.org/ http://80000hours.org/

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novaleaf 13y ago

the author tries to cover himself by saying "people without families to support" but of course most people plan to have a family someday... when that's taken into consideration, I think the author's claim of "a wasted life" seems extremely naive and misguided

room271 13y ago

I feel like a lot of people commenting here are correctly identifying that being dirt poor sucks. But they are then confusing this with a general linear (or near linear) relationship between money and happiness. If you are doing a regular skilled job in a Western country I would argue you will have enough money to pursue happiness/not be overly blocked by lack of wealth.