Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?

Why Aren’t Rich People Happy With the Money They Have?
theatlantic.com

If you worship money and things-if they are where you tap real meaning in life-then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already-it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power-you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default-settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

Some of the very rich try to invest in philanthropic causes. Studying the magnates of a century ago can be helpful. (E.g. the story of T. B. Walker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._B._Walker ) On the whole, today's ultra-rich seem less-inclined to give a damn (not unprecedented in history).

To me it all plays out in a much weirder manner among common people in countries that experienced rapid growth. Before my eyes my environment went from that of brutal poverty to - sometimes very uneven - prosperity.

> Worship your intellect, being seen as smart-you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

which suggests that Imposter Syndrome is a result of "worshipping" intellect, particularly our own individual intelligence. We spend many days judging interview candidates for their intelligence (even when it is not clear that anything more than adequate intelligence is needed for quality, lasting work), and then wonder why we are so afraid that we feel like imposters.