So just now the NYTimes is finding out that money can't outright buy happiness?
America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
11–20 of 475 posts
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#12I think there was a Blind post a few weeks ago where 40% said they were depressed despite most making $300k-$600k/year
I've always felt the key is to focus on how much you spend not on how much you make. I want to make a lot of money, but I'm always careful to never spend too much. It's consumption that ruins things.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#13- 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…
Not sure how you're interpreting the "good wife" but I interpreted her reaction as laughing at the notion they could afford to live on anything less than his current 1.2m salary.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#14>“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…
If this is your thesis you’ll have to explain how e.g. Communism totally did not have this problem.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Life is fundamentally empty. Unless you're religious: you live for a while then you die. Maybe you successfully procreated, and your descendants live until something gets them too.
Eventually climate change, or asteroids or supernova gets everyone left.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#16- 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…
It’s not about living on 500k vs 1 million. It’s about much, much earlier retirement.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#17The rich are depressed, the middle-class is shrinking and fearful, the poor are hopeless. I'm gonna take a leap here and say maybe people need some religion in their lives to give direction and meaning.
I found it interesting that a person in the article who made $1.2M a year was still depressed in thinking they were wasting their lives and it was all meaningless. I ask myself, does this person have children? a family to leave wealth to? or children to teach values to? I'm sorry but we have become so weak in our desire to satisfy only our own goals. That person's duty is to his family, and children (if he has any). His duty to society is to raise children with values that are compatible with the society. Religion instills this virtue and gives framework of how our actions on earth and our ability to reason and create is an imitation of "god" aka creation of existence.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#18- 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…
The way I read this part is that his wife laughed at how ridiculous the idea of taking a 50% pay cut was. I think that she was the one who couldn't imagine living with 600k instead of a million.
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#19The article seems to be omitting an important piece of data: Are people who make more money less happy/equally happy/more happy than people who make less?
It implies by its framing that they're less happy, but that's not actually supported by any actual data in the piece (though to be fair, on cursory googling I wasn't able to find any evidence one way or another).
Re: America’s Professional Elite: Wealthy, Successful and Miserable
#20At least in my country (Argentina) I think that at a personal level (indoor) we are all OK, the problem is at a social level (outdoor).
I can think of several projects that would make me happy and 100% sure that they would improve my community as well. But I don't have time or wealth or mechanisms to deal with it. We are lacking community level organization, because it is really hard to do it well, without messing with corruption or ineptitude.