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America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

nytimes.com

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Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#3
>“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.”

Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than you.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#5
I was just thinking about this in the bus.

Most of the time, it's not really the fault of politics making us sway one way or another. It's also the routine and the whole we-ve-always-done-things-this-way. Society is not always really competent and organized in a way that brings improvement, but it's not really the fault of anyone, it's just civilization being too rigid by definition. It's a communication problem.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#6
- He had received an offer at a start-up, and he would have loved to take it, but it paid half as much, and he felt locked into a lifestyle that made this pay cut impossible. “My wife laughed when I told her about it,” he said. Sounds like a good wife to me, and this "pay cut" is making 500k-600k instead of 1.2 million, what world are these people living in that you can't give up a job that you hate because you can't afford to live on 500-600k.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#7

>“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than yo…

is it capitalism or the fundamental emptiness of life?

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#8

>“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than yo…

is it capitalism or the fundamental emptiness of life?

Life isn't fundamentally empty. It's the philosophical underpinnings of profit-worship that make life seem empty.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#9

I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year

I think this is a quintessentially American slash Protestant-work-ethicy sentence. Why is anyone surprised that people who work so much that they don't have a life, meaningful relationships to other people or a vibrant social circle are depressed?

If you optimize for making lots of money, that's (hopefully? probably?) what you will achieve. But it's very misguided to think that having a lot of money is how you become happy. If you want to be happy, make time for your friends, family, people important to you, and spend time on yourself and what you like doing. It's not complicated.

Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable

#10

>“I feel like I’m wasting my life,” he told me. “When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.” Capitalists are realizing the fundamental emptiness of capitalism. It's hard to have a sense of purpose when your entire life is spent making a number on a spreadsheet into a slightly larger number for the benefit of someone even more elite than yo…

is it capitalism or the fundamental emptiness of life?

Meaning can absolutely be found in life, one way cited throughout history across many cultures and religions is directly helping others (charity, teaching, medicine).
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