
Is getting rich worth it? - jesseddy
http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it
======
pg
_The next thing you need to understand about money is this: all of the things
you picture buying, they are only worthwhile to you because you cannot afford
them (or have to work really hard to acquire them)._

That was one of the biggest surprises for me. I never realized the degree to
which not being able to afford certain things was what was making me want
them. That childhood excitement of saving up your money to buy some coveted
thing is completely gone. And without it you find you covet the thing far
less. When you realize you can bring it home from the store whenever you want,
you're often surprised to find yourself thinking "let them keep it there for
now."

Curiously, this affects people in different ways. When the excitement of e.g.
buying a fancy car is diminished by 10x, some people respond by buying 10
fancy cars, and others just lose interest. I turned out to be in the latter
group, and judging from what I've seen in SV, a lot of HN readers probably
also would be.

It's slightly sad, in the way that losing one's appetite or sexual desire
might be. On the other hand, you're arguably less of a slave to people
marketing luxuries, and the other things you long for might be more worth
longing for.

~~~
liber8
It’s interesting that people refuse to believe this, even though they’ve
almost certainly experienced it on a smaller scale.

For example, when you’re a poor student, you undoubtedly covet the nice gear
in whatever field you’re into. If you’re into photography, you want that new
camera or lens. If you’re into computer games, you want the newest rig. If
you’re into cooking, you want some Le Creuset cast iron or some copper pots.
But interestingly, once you start making even semi-decent money (say, $75,000)
you could easily afford these things. And yet, most people no longer covet
them when they reach that level. They may make a few initial purchases, but
they soon realize that, because they can buy a $2,000 lens or a $500 french
oven without much thought or planning, the shine is gone. Instead, they shift
their sights to the $200,000 Porsche or the $2,000,000 home.

There’s no reason this doesn’t apply at $20,000,000 just as it does at
$75,000. There’s always bigger, better, and more to covet.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
My experience is a bit different. After working as a software engineer and
suddenly (yes, it was sudden) realizing that I could afford most of the things
I had ever wanted, I just didn't want them any more.

I don't find that I want more expensive things, instead I just lost interest
in most material objects. Being able to lend/give (I never expected the loan
would be repaid) a friend of a friend $3,000 to avoid foreclosure gave me
infinitely more satisfaction than anything I could have spent that money on.

Even now, years later, it still amazes me that I simply don't want stuff I
don't need. Well, for the most part, anyway :-)

~~~
nickconfer
All good points. I can remember being broke as a college student downloading
music I didn't even want, and today I only buy music and rarely at that. Once
you can afford something, I think many of us take a step back and then ask,
"do I really want/need this?". I find I have this exercise not just because it
is less exciting to have something you can easily own, but also because owning
things has a physical cost. Time to research and buy, maintain, and store.

I'm not rich by any means, but as I've made more and more money, just like
you, I've found giving to be infinitely more satisfying than spending on
myself.

Truthfully, part of it is just the shocked expression someone can have when
doing something that makes them feel special. Another part of it is the "do
good" feeling, and the appreciation I have that I'm lucky enough to have the
ability to do these things. Hard work means a lot, but I don't kid myself, I
could have grown up in a position where my chance of success from child to
adult was much lower.

------
jpdoctor
> _Most people now want something out of you_

This is a common mistake, esp among the newly wealthy who are young: The last
thing you want is for anyone to know that you are wealthy.

There are many ways to make sure people stay ignorant of your wealth. For the
people (and dates) that don't know your wealth, then you sure as hell don't
educate them by words or bling. For people that know you had an exit, they
never saw the documents and don't know what your number was. And if they
probe, then "the investors got most of it, and uncle sam took half of the
rest. At least I made a profit."

And the truth is: Yes, having the money is nicer than not having it, but it
really doesn't make your life worth living or give it meaning. That requires a
great deal more effort.

Edit: I think Prawks should be top HN comment.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5182922>

~~~
malandrew
The other piece of advice I always here is that as soon as you have the money,
put it away in some safe financial instrument (after you've paid any
outstanding debts) for at about a year and keep living your life on exactly
the same income you had before you became rich.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
That sounds an excellent idea - plus, to be fair, it kinda solves the "what if
I go crazy and spend it" - if the right amount is tied up in trust funds for
your children (enough to do something, not enough to do nothing) then you can
consider the rest risk-potential and worry less (one hopes)

In general however, people who win lotteries tend to go back to their norm of
happiness within a year. By the time you are 18 you are either a happy person
or not. Sorry.

~~~
run4yourlives
The quantifier of 18 is not really accurate, although I agree with the general
sentiment.

For many (most?) people, 18 is simply the start of the journey. That journey
may be short or it may take decades, but the idea that you are somehow static
after a certain age is certainly something coming from a very young mind.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
perhaps it was phrased wrongly - certainly there are convincing studies that
one gets happier (by whatever metrics) as one progresses through the decades.

However if we have happy as a spectrum, I contend people are placed by the end
of childhood on a point on that spectrum - some lucky ones far to the right,
others not. One can move up the spectrum, but not everyone ends up crowded to
the right - we can easily imagine two people, one in left 2nd std dev, one in
the right. THey both get happier as they get older, but the person on the far
left of the bell curve just never gets to be as happy as the other was in
their twenties.

I colloquially would say one is a happy person. The other not.

------
antirez
Nice post but the guy completely forgot to say that over a certain level of
richness you start to stop worryng about _work_.

That for most people here means probably to work even more, but just coding
what they believe is significant, when you feel with the right energy, and not
what the current company / job believes it is.

I believe there is a significant amount of people that every day wake up and
go make something they believe it is useless, just to pay the bills. Richness
can stop this massive personal sacrifice.

Clarification: As you can guess I'm very happy with my current job, the
problem is, I wrote useless code for many years when I started to pay my bills
as a programmer. Later I created companies and I was able to escape the
sadness of writing useless code. However the fear of returning into this
condition is always present, especially with a loan that I used to purchase a
new house, children, and so forth.

~~~
ownagefool
I go to work every week day to do stupid stuff people want me to do it stupid
ways to pay for a stupid house and stupid food in order to make sure I
survive. For the area I live, I get paid reasonably well I'd say and I do it
they way because they pay more than the other guy.

Money offers choices. It allows people to live and work where they want and
makes it a helluva lot easier to stand up for yourself or leave your job to
find your passion. I currently have none of these allowances.

Even without any it's plain to see how money can make it easier to be happy in
life, but at the end of the day happiness is up to yourself. I'm reasonably
happy without any money, but I know if I had some, I could probably make
myself happier. :p

------
speeder
I want to get rich.

But I don't want to do it because I want stuff. I don't want a Audi, or a
Maserati, or a fancy home, or the newest gadget.

I have a objective, a plan, for me, and for future generations, and I know how
much it will cost, and doing it will require me to be rich.

And I know how much problems it will attract, how much relationships it will
wreck, and how much danger it will bring to my life.

But I don't want to get rich for pure hedonism, far form that, it is because
of my beliefs, I believe some stuff need to be done, and I concluded that few
people will do it, meaning that I will have to do it, since I have to do it, I
will figure a way to get rich, and do it.

To me, it will be worth, because it will be having the means of pursuing what
I believe, but it will also be a sacrifice, it will be the opposite of a life
that I had for a long time, it will be the opposite of being laid back, almost
lazy, work only for pleasure, and live a peaceful life. It will mean politics,
hardwork, backstabbing...

But I believe I have a duty to do, and I must do it, and I will venture doing
that, and when I get rich, I know I will have to fight very hard to use the
money for what I planned, instead of wasting it all in pleasurable stuff.

~~~
rquantz
The OP seems to think most people want to get rich because they think it will
make them happy, and he may be right. But in my life, most of the decisions
I've made with my happiness in mind have had the side effect of reducing my
income -- going to music school, leaving my day job, choosing to spend time
with my girlfriend instead of getting in 8 billable hours every day.

That being said, I've recently made the decision to become, if not rich, at
least well off enough that I have money to spare. My parents are aging and
deeply in debt, my younger sister is sick (as she has been her whole life) and
will never be able to support herself or hold down a job to give her health
insurance. And I'd like to have kids and give them as many opportunities as I
had.

It's not about happiness for me, per se. I've been given certain gifts, and I
think I can use them to provide for my people. I think that's my
responsibility.

~~~
im3w1l
>But in my life, most of the decisions I've made with my happiness in mind
have had the side effect of reducing my income -- going to music school,
leaving my day job, choosing to spend time with my girlfriend instead of
getting in 8 billable hours every day.

But this is exactly it. If you were dirt poor you couldn't have done these
things. Conversely if you were richer you would be able to do less of them. I
suppose, anyway.

~~~
rquantz
This is a long time after, and maybe you won't see my response. But in fact
for most of my adult life I _have_ been dirt poor. I scraped by for years as a
freelance musician. The decision I made as a high school student was that
money wasn't important to me, which is why I chose a field that would make me
happy instead of being lucrative.

The day job a I quit was a 34K/year entry level web dev gig that didn't pay me
enough to live in NYC and do any saving. I quit without having any runway
because I was miserable and decided that I had learned as much as I was going
to there.

My point is that I've been poor, and decisions I've made about being happier
have not involved making more money. I've been rethinking that decision
lately.

------
drewmck
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill>

"The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed
tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness
despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to
this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in
tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Brickman and Campbell
coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good
Society" (1971).[2] During the late 1990s, the concept was modified by Michael
Eysenck, a British psychologist, to become the current "hedonic treadmill
theory" which compares the pursuit of happiness to a person on a treadmill,
who has to keep working just to stay in the same place."

~~~
Xcelerate
Very good link. From the article,

> And contradicting set point theory, there is apparently no return to
> homeostasis after sustaining a disability or developing a chronic illness.

I can vouch for that. I was an avid runner, but two years ago I got cartilage
damage in both knees that left me unable to run or even walk entirely normal
(I'm 22 years old). After surgery this year, I'm doing much better, but I feel
like I've lost a part of myself that I won't ever get back short of complete
healing... which unless we get some radical new cartilage science, isn't bound
to happen anytime soon.

I'm still very happy on a daily basis, just not as much as I used to be.

~~~
mgkimsal
Do you think your measure of 'happy' changes as well too? It's hard for me to
compare my measure of 'happiness' at 22 vs 19 (even when I was 22) because so
much was changing in my life at that point. I'm not suggesting you're 'wrong'
in your feelings, but for many people, that age period brings about a lot of
changes anyway, so comparing 'happy' levels even a few years apart is not a
precise science.

------
prawks
The original post on Quora:

<http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it>

~~~
jpdoctor
This should have been the HN link. (And yours should be top comment.)

Many many worthy comments in that thread.

Edit: To crusso's point, I didn't realize it requires a login. I guess I
finally broke down and got one over there a while ago.

~~~
crusso
Well, that link tried to force me to register or log in. That's not
appropriate for a HN link.

~~~
prawks
*Not appropriate for any website.

My mistake, I assumed a link to Quora wouldn't bombard you with a registration
request, it's been a while since I've registered.

------
haberman
> First, one of the only real things being rich gives you is that you don't
> have to worry about money as much anymore.

I disagree with this. One thing being rich gives you is the ability to make
things happen.

Being a benefactor of a cause or artistic organization or an investor in a
startup means that you can help set into motion meaningful projects that you
believe in that would not otherwise have been possible. I'm a singer and one
group I sing with has a benefactor who has financed all of our recording
projects. We put his name in the CD notes and that guy can know that without
his support the CD simply could not have happened. I have to believe that's a
deeply gratifying feeling.

~~~
jhuni
Capitalism is a system of alienation. For us hackers this is clear as day as
the many proprietary software programs out there directly alienate people from
the process of software production. Perhaps the best thing about being a
capitalist is that you are no longer alienated from production like everyone
else so you can make things happen.

~~~
elemenohpee
That's what's so twisted about the American Dream™, is that it's the desire
for a certain type of individual freedom, but a freedom that is always based
on the subjugation of others. It's not a universal freedom, which to me is the
only kind.

------
TamDenholm
I'm not rich, but when i was a teenager and still living with my parents i
went from being without heating for a month in the winter because we couldnt
afford the bills to now where i earn more than enough to live. I've
experienced what the author is talking about.

I remember having to make sure we only spent a certain amount on food and
clothes and now i dont even need to consider such a thing. Day to day life is
better by a country mile knowing i have enough money to pay for general life
expenses. I still cant go out an buy a car without thinking about it, but i
could buy a TV without thinking about it.

Once you have that level of complacency you start aspiring to other things and
its difficult to maintain a level. I like good food and once went to the best
restaurant in my city i spent £250 for a meal for 2 and i didnt care about the
money, i _could_ do that once every few weeks, but i wouldnt do it more than
once/twice every year, because i know it would bring my level of expectancy
higher.

I think its important you keep yourself comfortable, but dont allow yourself
to get used to the finer things you love, because then you wont love them any
more and you'll expect them and they wont be special any more.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _but dont allow yourself to get used to the finer things you love, because
> then you wont love them any more and you'll expect them and they wont be
> special any more._

I agree with most of your comment, but the last one causes me to ask: If
simple repetition is enough to lose love for these "finer" things, then why
waste effort on them anymore? Why not spend effort on things that will hold
your love more permanently? (or at least with a longer time constant...)

~~~
TamDenholm
Well i'm not saying there aren't things like that, but for instance, nice
restaurants, quad biking and weekends away with the gf are things i enjoy
immensely but dont do very often because if i did i think i wouldnt enjoy them
as much, the very fact its a treat and not a normal occurrence is a large
reason i enjoy them.

That isnt to say you shouldnt work towards finding longer term things that are
less fickle and bring more overall life enjoyment that sticks, but the
examples i gave are temporary by nature and my point was that not doing them
often makes them special and i personally want to keep that.

I dont know why i would give these things up just because i'd not love them
any more if i did them every week. They provide long term happiness because
they're rare and i can look forward to them and remember them.

------
jhuni
Proletarians suffer from the four kinds of alienation Marx referred to in the
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1) alienation from products (2)
alienation from the act of production (3) alienation from ones own life (4)
alienation from fellow laborers. The forms of alienations the bourgeoisie have
to go through are not nearly as acute as the alienation of the proletariat.

Perhaps the most important aspect of being as rich as a bourgeoisie is that
you have a secure existence. You don't have to worry about finding a job,
paying for health care, paying child support, paying rent on time so that you
don't have to join the masses of homeless people living in the cold, or any of
the other things ordinary people have to worry about. Having a secure
existence is a major stress reliever and it makes your life better no
question.

------
lawn
I want to get rich, not for the sake of it, the "power" or statue. I want to
get rich so I can fulfill some of my dreams - I want to live near my
birthplace where the job opportunities aren't so good, I want to own a snooker
table and a nice house and most of all I don't want the pressure to always
have to provide for my eventual family.

I want to get rich so I can get away with working with fun, but high risk,
projects without having to live like a student. I would like to be able to
make indie games for a living, but the risk is too big for me to stake my
family on.

~~~
edraferi
You should read "So Good They Can't Ignore You."

It lays out a clever mental model for turning interests into skills into
control over your career.

[http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-
You/dp/145550912...](http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-
You/dp/1455509124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360259773&sr=8-1&keywords=so+good+they+can%27t+ignore+you)

~~~
lawn
I might actually do that. Thanks for the tip.

------
stephengillie
I'd rather have wealth than money. I'd rather live in a world where our needs
are met through a wealth of automation than be a rich man today.

 _Money Is Not Wealth

If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is
not the same thing as money. [3] Wealth is as old as human history. Far older,
in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.

Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes,
houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have
wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command
make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you
wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of
Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money
you had._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

------
jnbiche
The mere suggestion that all of us middle-class schmucks are out here dreaming
of an Audi or some other bling shows how out of touch he/she is with middle
class America. Maybe that's the way it was in the 1980s, but now most of us in
the middle class are just desperately trying to pay rising insurance bills,
electricity bills, childcare, groceries, and clawing with all our might to not
fall out of the middle class. I can honestly say I haven't thought about
wanting money for something that wasn't an absolute necessity for a decent
middle class life since my early 20s (I'm in my late 30s now). Many of us
don't even dream about getting rich -- we just dream of having enough income
to pay the bills. Based on my experiences, and that of my peers, middle class
life around the country is changing drastically. I've watched a number of
families formerly in the upper middle class fall into the mundane middle
class, and middle class folks fall into the lower classes. I wonder if the
boom in SV has isolated many of you from this. If that's the case, I'm
sincerely glad you don't have to deal with it -- it's depressing to do well in
school and work hard, only to see the dreams of a stable, secure middle-class
life float away. For most of us, it's just paycheck to paycheck now.

~~~
elemenohpee
> For most of us, it's just paycheck to paycheck now.

Everything is going according to plan. When you see how perfectly all of this
lines up with the interests of the plutocrats you just have to wonder to what
degree it is conscious collusion. What lies do they tell themselves in the
pursuit of economic power and the subsequent subjugation of the population, or
have they completely dispensed with even the pretense of plebeian morality?

------
brador
I know a few rich and I haven't seen something mentioned here:

Everything becomes boring. Hobbies are awesome because you have to anticipate
and wait to do them. Imagine doing nothing but your hobbies 14 hours a day.
Then when you're bored of all your hobbies you have nothing else to do. So you
hit up vegas. That lasts 2-3 years then you call it. Anecdotal? Yes, but I've
seen it happen way too often.

Figure out something to do. Just something, start a cheap cafe and hire
workers, a manufacturing plant for wallpaper, whatever. Just have something to
do thats not all about you so you don't have to keep asking yourself what
should I do now? Becuase that question will become a thorn in your side.

------
swombat
I want to get rich because money, that commonplace, almost vulgar device, can
be traded for time, the most precious thing in the universe, and for
influence, a multiplier of time/action that can help me to achieve more good
things in my life.

------
scarmig
Can't most of these great injustices be solved by the newly rich person not
bragging about it and living roughly on what they were consuming before plus
25-50%?

Yeah, yeah, you just got this big chunk of change and you want to spend it on
Tesla cars and the French Laundry and vacation homes! But when you engage in
flagrant consumption people notice and start wanting in on the action.

Figure out what the average amount consumed for someone in the 90th percentile
and stick strictly to that budget (and you won't be taking on debt to do it!).
Throw any excess money you have around in interesting investments and social
ventures. Even if people find out you're loaded, if you're living modestly
they'll know not to expect you to act that differently.

~~~
lazyjones
> Can't most of these great injustices be solved by the newly rich person not
> bragging about it and living roughly on what they were consuming before plus
> 25-50%?

Not if you listen to those (many) who consider it anti-social behaviour to
hoard money instead of spending it (because spending feeds the economy, pays
salaries ...), or even getting interest as a "no-work income".

[I disagree with those people: if your money does not participate in the
economy, the relative value of other people's money increases]

~~~
ido
The bank uses your money where you do or not.

------
harryh
Flagged for linking to a site that is blatantly stealing content. Link should
go to the original on Quora:

<http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it>

~~~
nobody-special
it says so right on the box:

"curaqion is a monthly curation of high quality answers from fascinating
topics and questions on Quora."

------
louischatriot
I'd like to become rich. Not to buy stuff I can't buy today but because of the
possibilities it gives you. If you have a few millions in your bank account,
you can take whatever job you like, create a company without fearing that
failure will put you on the street etc. Then again I can imagine the
downsides, as the article explains. I think it all boils down to "dont tell
people how rich you are".

Tldr version: [http://tldr.io/tldrs/5113da0cb507aa413100001d/is-getting-
ric...](http://tldr.io/tldrs/5113da0cb507aa413100001d/is-getting-rich-worth-
it)

------
pvdm
Everyone live in their own personal bubble. Go volunteer at a food bank
sometimes.

------
taeric
I guess I just can't follow these thoughts. Of course if your alternatives are
"be rich" or "not be rich" than it is worth it. Why wouldn't it be? If the
option is "abandon your family to attempt to get rich" versus "prioritize your
family such that you are comfortable," it seems the latter will win.

Also, just because you get "rich" doesn't mean anyone else has to know that.
It just means you no longer have to worry about money income problems. Please
do not underestimate that, as that is HUGE.

------
GotAnyMegadeth
My plan, if I ever manage to get rich, is to live like a student forever,
without having to go to work. I don't really care for owning things, as long
as I have got a bass guitar, a laptop and a cat, I'm happy.

~~~
thoughtcriminal
So you think.

I'm just kidding. I'm the same way. What makes me happy is my four cats,
making other people happy and having a great idea to work on.

But it's the idea part that can cause me problems. If I have a good idea I'll
do nearly anything to make it happen. I'll spend my bill money to make it
real. If/when I become money rich (I'm already rich in other ways) I may scale
this risky behavior and still find myself in trouble (as I am now).

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
4 cats!? You must be rich already! lol

~~~
thoughtcriminal
Rich in hairballs, yes.

------
mandlar
I don't want to be rich, per se... I'd rather simply obtain "financial
independence" where I am sufficiently happy with what I have and I can do what
I absolutely love to do for a living and not necessarily have to worry about
money. Getting "rich" would just simply jump me quicker to this state of
"financial independence."

------
nell
_Don't give a loan to friends and family. Give a gift._

I'm not rich. But I do follow this one principle that I also strongly
recommend.

------
dclowd9901
Despite reading the entire post, I still want to be rich. That's pretty
telling about how marginal all these problems sound to someone without money.

------
kennethologist
This quora thread provided a great deal of illumination for me on the question
"Is getting rich worth it?"

<http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it>

Top answer summary: Here's my answer: being rich is better than not being
rich, but it's not nearly as good as you imagine it is.

------
sosuke
As much as I am working my butt off right now, if I don't get rich then it
wouldn't have been worth it. When I do get rich, and for some reason I find it
wasn't worth the sacrifices, then I will lie to myself about it. Humans have
an amazing capacity for denial.

------
aj700
My putting arguments from an explicitly European perspective always gets me in
trouble here. But here I go.

There may (MAY) be some Socalization [sic] going on here. I.e. Americans think
this is what people do in America, therefore they must be like this
everywhere.

Americans might keep expecting you to give them a car as a Christmas present.
Europeans would never be so materialistic as to want or expect one. Have at
it.

The overall TCO of a nice German car is easily $1m. So most people don't
understand that 15m is only 15 cars. And I mean only. And you can't buy
anything else on that hypothetical basis.

Is my partner into my or my money? Maybe I DON'T know the answer to that. But
I'm past caring.

------
ArchD
So, according to the author if you let people already in your life know about
your wealth, they may act weird and have unreasonable expectations about
sharing in your wealth. I think that can be a good thing. It brings out a side
of people you never knew. It could tell you who your true friends and family
are. The true ones are the ones who don't expect a free ride.

------
saosebastiao
I object to the idea expressed near the end...that if you aren't happy now,
money will not change that. While I am nowhere near as rich as the author, my
financial situation has changed drastically in the last year. The lack of
stress that I now experience is absolutely a factor in my increased happiness.

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davemel37
This title is slightly misleading." Most of the downsides he has about being
rich revolve around OTHERS KNOWING THAT HE IS RICH, and are not a product of
him actually being rich.

The post should be titled,"Why I Don't Want Anyone To Know When I Strike It
Rich, Especially My Relatives."

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pknerd
Not for me but I do need enough money to fulfill what I want to. No excessive
money needed.

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givan
Is eating healthier, living in a better environment, having access to better
health services etc worth it? In the capitalist system you can't have them
without a non trivial amount of money.

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codegeek
He says "being rich is better than not being rich..."

So sure it is worth it. Totally understood that it introduces other
complications or it may not be as fulfilling as you imagined.

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orangethirty
I don't know if its worth it, but I don't really like the alternative (being
broke). These days, you either have money or you don't. There is no middle
class.

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andrewdubinsky
My dad only gave me a few bits of advice, but on money he said, "Money does
not buy happiness, but it does whitewash a lot of problems".

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nell
A good target would be to become a person worthy of the wealth. This is also
the reason why lottery winners are said to go bust.

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MojoJolo
Honestly, I want to get rich. To have a stable life. To prove my self worth.

~~~
hmbg
Your second reason is an interesting one. Winning the lottery may be nice, but
I don't think it would impact my level of happiness in a big way. The
confidence I'd get from selling my company for millions of dollars, that's
another thing entirely. That's something I strive for.

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MojoJolo
You're right. Lottery is not one of my plan to get rich.

Other than money. I believe getting something you strive for is really worth
it. It will give you happiness.

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joshfraser
Money is the world's curse. May the Lord smite me with it.

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up_and_up
There's only one way to find out for yourself.

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cpursley
Wealth simply amplifies who you already are.

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dakimov
Yes. Next question.

An extremely authoritative opinion from some Anonymous that appears more like
speculations doesn't count.

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georgelawrence
Do this experiment: 1\. Go to Google.com 2\. Enter "filthy stinking" into the
box 3\. Notice the first autocomplete suggestion

