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I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

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Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#11

Post by pizza234 »

vdfs wrote: post #7

There is nothing wrong with making money, usually it's the way people make money that is bad or good, not money itself

It's a bit more complicated than that. When somebody's only goal/pleasure is to make money, it's very easy to lose sight of ethics/empathy, in particular of things in the grey areas.

And note that with "grey areas", I mean things that would be repulsive to ordinary people, e.g. patent trolling (is it illegal? no! does it make lots of money? yes! is it unethical? what do you mean? :-)).

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#13

Post by rubidium »

Arm-chair psychologist response below :)

Good self awareness on the part of the author. Next step is action. When you realize a deficiency in character (judging everything by monetary ROI), there's a concept of "Agere contra" meaning to act against. You choose to do something directly in contrast to the deficiency.

So in this case, I'd recommend definitely need to start helping people. For free. In as inefficient way as possible. Something like cutting your elderly neighbors lawn with scissors.

Taking a step back, this is the result of (1) insulation from real hardship, (2) capitalist/consumerist brainwashing esp. of the entrepreneurship-fetish of software startups.

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#14

Post by artemonster »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

how is it possible to save 2.5 mil from salary? I am from upper 5% in germany in terms of salary, and I can only manage to save ~10kEur/year, while maintaining decent lifestyle. An order of magnitude lower than you'd need to retire with such a sum after 20 years or so. How do you do that? Genuine question

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#15

Post by dusted »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

An interesting point of view. Practically, I agree with you, that FU wealth is probably the most realistic way to achieve the freedom required for some personality types to achieve happiness.

I am unfortunately one of them, intellectually, I've conclude the same for myself many times over, and have been unable to change my view on this, as much as I'd love to find peace in my sitaution and enjoy life (tm).

What's hard about it is that it's probably impossible for most people to achieve this kind of wealth, after all, in the current socioeconomic situation, you can't be rich in any traditional sense of the word, without someone else being relatively less well off.

Until we have robots doing our work, and almost-infinite access to resources through no or little work of our own, the traditional definitions are valid.

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#16

Post by SamBorick »

I used to feel this way. Paradoxically, I've found that completely ignoring income/clicks resolves this problem. Here's what happened to me:

1. Try and make 'the optimal thing'. Something easy to create, and so lucrative that I won't have to make anything else again

2. flail like the author describes

3. decide that no amount of money is worth feeling this way (or otherwise burnout via your method of choice)

4. make nothing for a while (~6 months for me)

5. start missing some aspects of what you used to do

6. gradually start making those things again, with the goal being to make those things.

Hopefully step 7 is profit, time will tell. If it's not, I'm ok with that too :)

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#17

Post by the-dude »

nicoburns wrote: post #8
pyrrhotech wrote: post #6

I felt like that until I got to around $2.5 million liquid net worth. Now I still like money, but each additional dollar is starting to show diminishing marginal utility. Though of course I'm still trying to grow my net worth, it's no longer the main focus of my life, especially now that I'm "retired" from my main career at least. I split my time between gaming, running, reading, socializing and working on my trading…

So 99.99% of the world can't be happy? Don't you think it's quite selfish of you to prioritise achieving this for yourself over allowing a greater number of people to have a more reasonable level of wealth?

> though I know opinions vary here

Why are you reacting so heavily on a quite balanced comment?

Re: I Feel Like I Have No Real Interests; My Only Interest Is Making Money

#20

Post by torben-friis »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #10
nicoburns wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 99.99% of the world can't be happy? Don't you think it's quite selfish of you to prioritise achieving this for yourself over allowing a greater number of people to have a more reasonable level of wealth?

I shouldn't speak for everyone. For me personally, I was happyish during my career but I'm definitely much, much happier now that I'm wealthy and retired. And it's not a short term buzz, I've been retired for 2 years and the feeling hasn't worn off. I know it sucks we don't have unlimited resources for everyone in society to be free and 100% happy. Maybe someday we will with full automation. In the meantime, most peo…

I’m curious, in which ways do you feel that money made you happier? As in, what were the important things it has enabled for you that weren't available under, say, an average engineer's salary?
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