On Being Rich
Some of you may recall that shortly after I moved to LA, I became temporarily obsessed with the idea of becoming wealthy. Not merely the notion of being counted among the upper-class tax bracket, oh no. I mean independently wealthy - that wholly self-absorbed state where money magically appears in your accounts without you lifting a finger. Fortunately, my expenditure of my real resources with real limits amounted to no more than $30 in pursuit of this obnoxious dream. But its pursuit, however brief and insane, led me to reflect a great deal on the nature of money and people's desire for it.
In my high school philosophy class we covered this topic in a cursory and wholly unsatisfying way. I say this because when it comes to something I feel passionate about, such as the flaws in our monetary system, I don't feel truly satisfied until I have engaged at least one academic peer in debate and ground their bones into dust beneath the sheer weight of my conviction. A terrible habit, to be sure. But the essence of what we studied was how people in different economic classes viewed money, and how much they considered would be sufficient for them to be truly content (given in a lump sum). The poorest man claimed ten thousand, the middle class man said one hundred thousand, and the rich man insisted on a quarter of a million. The point of this was to illustrate that like all other human feeling, monetary desire is based on relative perception. Once a person is used to a certain standard of wealth they will set their sights upon new, higher levels yet to be attained. You can observe this sort of behavior amongst drug addicts as well, though its arguable how much materialism links with addiction (even though much of modern consumerism is based upon inducing addictive feelings and habits for all sorts of products).
The big question is, why do people want to be rich? I've been struggling with this one for a while, but I believe I finally put my finger on a reasonable answer: freedom. Being rich, to many people, represents the highest level of freedom that can be attained - freedom from need, freedom from worry, even freedom from the law to some extent. It is widely believed that once you are rich, you can do more or less whatever you want and never lack for anything. People dream of travelling the world, becoming artists, running a horse ranch, and a million other pursuits that simply aren't viable jobs in this day and age. With wealth, people feel they can finally attain their dreams, practicality be damned. Unfortunately, this isn't really the case. I have known several people who are well into the millionaire level, but are not happy people. They may have all the money they could ever need, but they constantly worry that they will somehow lose it. They fear the government taking it away, or poor people rising up, or their mutual funds crashing down. In fact, the happiest people I have ever met have not been even close to being rich.
Which leads me back to the next logical question. If people really want to be free, do they have to be rich?
To me, being free means doing what I want to do as much as possible. Being rich can get in the way of that, since your wealth may put you in danger or stem from an extremely demanding job that eats up all of your waking hours. So what I really want isn't to be rich, its to do what I want. This concept is so simple that it sounds like a self-help tape that you'd buy at a seven eleven, but it really is a very crucial idea. By keeping this idea in mind, I think its possible to craft a lifestyle for yourself that maximizes freedom in all the ways that matter most to you.
Take, for example, work hours. I personally find working a regular schedule to be very restricting. Its not a lack of organization - I have an excellent notion of time, and can consistently show up when I'm expected. Its that I simply don't work at a steady pace, and my attention really enjoys habitual vagrancy. Operating in the real world requires getting things done, so I've trained myself to hyper-focus for short periods of time. Essentially, I work in burst mode. I analyze an action and streamline it until I'm in the high nineties of efficiency, and then execute the hell out of it until I simply need a rest. Its a strange method, to be sure, but it works astoundingly well. I've consistently surpassed my peers in output since college, even when they pulled weekly all-nighters and I spent half my time daydreaming on a beach.
So the freeom of working your own schedule, at your own pace, under your own motivation is something that I am striving for. This particular type of freedom I have found to be important to me. And if I can eventually find a means of earning a good living (great would be fine too, but I'm ok with good) while maintaining this freedom, it will be a big step towards that happiness I once thought could only be had through becoming a billionaire.
In my high school philosophy class we covered this topic in a cursory and wholly unsatisfying way. I say this because when it comes to something I feel passionate about, such as the flaws in our monetary system, I don't feel truly satisfied until I have engaged at least one academic peer in debate and ground their bones into dust beneath the sheer weight of my conviction. A terrible habit, to be sure. But the essence of what we studied was how people in different economic classes viewed money, and how much they considered would be sufficient for them to be truly content (given in a lump sum). The poorest man claimed ten thousand, the middle class man said one hundred thousand, and the rich man insisted on a quarter of a million. The point of this was to illustrate that like all other human feeling, monetary desire is based on relative perception. Once a person is used to a certain standard of wealth they will set their sights upon new, higher levels yet to be attained. You can observe this sort of behavior amongst drug addicts as well, though its arguable how much materialism links with addiction (even though much of modern consumerism is based upon inducing addictive feelings and habits for all sorts of products).
The big question is, why do people want to be rich? I've been struggling with this one for a while, but I believe I finally put my finger on a reasonable answer: freedom. Being rich, to many people, represents the highest level of freedom that can be attained - freedom from need, freedom from worry, even freedom from the law to some extent. It is widely believed that once you are rich, you can do more or less whatever you want and never lack for anything. People dream of travelling the world, becoming artists, running a horse ranch, and a million other pursuits that simply aren't viable jobs in this day and age. With wealth, people feel they can finally attain their dreams, practicality be damned. Unfortunately, this isn't really the case. I have known several people who are well into the millionaire level, but are not happy people. They may have all the money they could ever need, but they constantly worry that they will somehow lose it. They fear the government taking it away, or poor people rising up, or their mutual funds crashing down. In fact, the happiest people I have ever met have not been even close to being rich.
Which leads me back to the next logical question. If people really want to be free, do they have to be rich?
To me, being free means doing what I want to do as much as possible. Being rich can get in the way of that, since your wealth may put you in danger or stem from an extremely demanding job that eats up all of your waking hours. So what I really want isn't to be rich, its to do what I want. This concept is so simple that it sounds like a self-help tape that you'd buy at a seven eleven, but it really is a very crucial idea. By keeping this idea in mind, I think its possible to craft a lifestyle for yourself that maximizes freedom in all the ways that matter most to you.
Take, for example, work hours. I personally find working a regular schedule to be very restricting. Its not a lack of organization - I have an excellent notion of time, and can consistently show up when I'm expected. Its that I simply don't work at a steady pace, and my attention really enjoys habitual vagrancy. Operating in the real world requires getting things done, so I've trained myself to hyper-focus for short periods of time. Essentially, I work in burst mode. I analyze an action and streamline it until I'm in the high nineties of efficiency, and then execute the hell out of it until I simply need a rest. Its a strange method, to be sure, but it works astoundingly well. I've consistently surpassed my peers in output since college, even when they pulled weekly all-nighters and I spent half my time daydreaming on a beach.
So the freeom of working your own schedule, at your own pace, under your own motivation is something that I am striving for. This particular type of freedom I have found to be important to me. And if I can eventually find a means of earning a good living (great would be fine too, but I'm ok with good) while maintaining this freedom, it will be a big step towards that happiness I once thought could only be had through becoming a billionaire.