You’ll Never Be Rich

How much money does it take to feel rich? Throw out a number.

Ten million dollars? Fifty million dollars? One Hundred million dollars?

Interestingly, when you ask people that have actually made that much money, the average answer seems to be about 25% more than they currently have. Even most of the “super rich” don’t feel financially secure.

I’m surprised by this. In the scheme of things, 25% more wealth isn’t going to change your lifestyle much at either the ten million dollar level or the hundred million dollar level. Sure, you could buy a cooler boat or a bigger plane or an extra vacation home with an extra $2.5 or $25 million, but you could already afford a nice boat or a nice plane or vacation house. So, why is the goal so low? Why not aim for an amount that would substantially affect your quality of life?

The actual study isn’t out yet, but the Atlantic got a sneak peek:

The study is titled “The Joys and Dilemmas of Wealth,” but given that the joys tend to be self-evident, it focuses primarily on the dilemmas. The respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure; for that, they say, they would require on average one-quarter more wealth than they currently possess. (Remember: this is a population with assets in the tens of millions of dollars and above.)

Maybe the need for more is hardwired into our DNA. It was only a few thousand years ago that many of our ancestors lived season to season, relying on the generosity of the weather and the soil. They had to hoard enough during the good years to make it through the lean ones. When you don’t know whether next year’s crop or herd will be thin, or the year’s after that, you can never accumulate too much to protect yourself. Maybe this lizard brain in our skulls makes us react the same way towards money.

Or, maybe we only want a little bit more because the little extra luxury is all we crave. Once you’ve grown accustomed to something, it’s no longer a luxury: it’s just how things are. Our brains are unhelpfully good at reframing how we see the world. But, just that little something money could buy that little extra thing that again feels luxurious. Until that becomes commonplace. Repeat.

So, chances are, unless you found the next facebook or LinkedIn, you’ll never truly feel rich. That is, if your definition of rich hinges on money.

What if you changed your definition of rich? What if you adopted the position of a family Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner describe in A Gilded Age?

Having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent.

Look at the troubles that goal would avoid: the respondents to the study say their wealth isolates them, making relationships with everyone more difficult. They say they’re treated differently by strangers, coworkers, family members, even other “super rich”. Work often becomes less meaningful, especially when those around them view their continued involvement as some sort of charade. This is why many of them turn to philanthropy, but the feeling that people are only interested in their money is pretty tough to shake there too (shocking, right?). The survey also found the respondents overwhelmingly concerned with how the money would effect their children:

Many express relief that their kids’ education was assured, but are concerned that money might rob them of ambition. Having money “runs the danger of giving them a perverted view of the world,” one respondent writes. Another worries, “Money could mess them up—give them a sense of entitlement, prevent them from developing a strong sense of empathy and compassion.

This is in no way to say that wealth, or the desire for wealth, is bad. I think it’s a very good thing. It helps people create art. But, the thing I found odd about the entire article is that no one spoke of “rich” as anything but “having lots and lots of money”. Not having read any of the individual responses to the study, and not knowing them personally, perhaps this is part of reason they are such a “generally dissatisfied lot”. Surely being rich encompasses much more than just having lots and lots of money.

I know people who fit into this “super rich” category who live very ordinary lives in very ordinary homes, drive very ordinary cars, and still go to the same jobs that made them very wealthy. They don’t seem to to be dissatisfied at all, nor do they seem to have the problems the survey respondents do. Their kids are some of the best people I’ve met. Perhaps it’s precisely because they never defined being rich as having lots and lots of money.

While your lizard brain may prevent you from ever really feeling “financially secure”, it should certainly never prevent you from feeling “rich”, so long as you define it in the right way.

You can read the entire Atlantic article here.