Joshua M Brown writes about the three Reasons we are never satisfied. He says no one is happy with the amount of money they have, up and down the scale. Pretty much everyone says they’d be contented if they only had 2 to 3 times more wealth. Why do people feel as though they won’t be satisfied until reaching a level of wealth that’s two to three times greater than what they have? Brown tells us the three reasons that are almost always in play.
Lifestyle creep As you make more money, new and better experiences are suddenly within reach. You only live once! Sitting closer to the basketball (or tennis or cricket or golf) court and flying first class and upgrading to better hotels and nicer restaurants, fancier cars and maybe even a private school with some extra tutoring. You can do these things now. But once this begins, you start to realize that while you have a lot of money, you’re spending it faster. So you’ll need more. Two to three times more would be perfect.
Wealth is always relative You don’t compare yourself to the average of your peers around you – at least, you don’t for long. You certainly don’t compare yourself to the poorest people you know or the least well off. You compare yourself to those who are doing best. It eats at you. It makes no sense. Especially when you realize that even they’re not any more satisfied than you are. It only looks that way from the outside.
Career obsolescence This is the one worry that people are so petrified about they almost never discuss it in the open. The anxiety stemming from career obsolescence hangs above all of our heads, at all times of day. Virtually no one feels completely secure in their ability to keep the money coming in. The pace of technological change might not be much different than it’s always been in today’s times, but it’s undeniable that the signs of it have become more ubiquitous. The five biggest companies in the world are all technology companies that assassinate middlemen in every industry vertical. Having two to three times our current wealth might not be necessary today, but it sure would be a nice insurance policy against the uncertainty of the future.
Now, let’s say you get that two to three times more, in the relatively short-term. Then what? Well, there will be more lifestyle creep. There will be wealthier neighbors. There will be continued fear of the future and your ability to keep up. Brown does not think we can eradicate any of these three drivers of our perpetual dissatisfaction. So we’ll just have to outrun them.
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