Money can't make me happy, says millionaire giving his riches away
ottawacitizen.com
ottawacitizen.com
If everyone feels fake to you, you can resolve that by putting yourself in situations where you will meet real, genuine people. There are many places where you can do that in the world. Hint: five star hotels in Hawai aren't it.
Go do some charity work. Go spend time helping people who are poorer than you. Go around the world without checking into five star hotels. Go and do what everyone else does. There's no need to give your money away to live a genuine life. Having the money available also makes things possible that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. When you see an opportunity to make a difference, having $5m in the bank allows you to make things happen that would be simply impossible otherwise.
This is probably a controversial view, but I don't think this guy is brave. I think he's just stupid. He's greatly limited his own freedom, and that after having worked like a donkey his whole life to expand it. What a pointless thing to do.
People often self-destruct when their dreams come true and they suddenly realize they have spent years chasing a lie. People in the startup world are particularly susceptible -- I know I sure am.
When faced with an existential crisis some people cope by doing lines off a hooker's ass-- other people just give their money away. Neither solution deals with the underlying problem, but it's probably better than the alternative.
All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans and advice to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.
He sounds like a guy who has figured out what he wants, after a lifetime of saving for an indeterminate future need.
Studies have found that money can make you happy - so long as you spend it on creating great memories that are valuable for you.
If you said he went around a poor part of India and gave all the money away to people that he met there, I would see some merit to that. At least, he'll get the experience of having met all these people and changed their lives. Those memories would stay with him his whole life. Setting up $5m's worth of anonymous micro-loans might make you feel good for a few months, maybe a year or two, but the memory will soon fade. It's too distant.
Even if you decide that your calling in life is to give all your stuff away, there are much more personally fulfilling ways to do it.
And I, too, would like to know what his wife has to say about this. Setting up a charity is fine, but moving from a villa to a bedsit? I'm starting to think there may be some divorce-related spite involved here.
Better lucky than good.
"The things you own, they own you."
He got it; he just disagrees.
You'd want him to "make things happen that would be simply impossible otherwise [if he didn't had 5 million]". My rebuttal is that he's done exactly that, but he's done so in one take, not allowing his fear of losing independence from later interfering with his ability to change things. That takes knowing oneself, and should be admired.
Why, yes. In particular, having $5M enables one to donate $5M, which is what he did.
You may think money and crack are completely different, but you would be wrong.
Millions of dollars more probably isn't really noticeable day to day. Going from a boat to a bigger boat, a house to a bigger house, an X to a better-X doesn't do much for you.
That first 50k in the bank does everything. When you have a year of living expenses in the bank, you don't fear losing your job. When you have 10 years of reasonable expenses in the bank, you have freedom. It's the points that you have something you didn't have before that make you more happy.
If this guy gives away his money to the point that he starts giving things up, not just having to downsize, then it is a story. A story about an idiot (prophet?), but otherwise it doesn't mean anything.
His quote: "Money is counterproductive - it prevents happiness." Is incorrect. Money is amoral and depends on the subject.
Money is not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So yes, it's subjective.
Speaking for myself, part of the reward of a successful career is the joy of seeing my work and talents used and enjoyed by others.
You can use money to go to exclusive resorts and hobnob with similar folks.
Or you can use money to go backpack the Appalachian trail, take guitar lessons, and do other interesting things.
I agree that more is not always better ... but money means having options, and just because there are some lame options doesn't mean all options are lame.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/02/01/rich-o-meter-20/tab/a...
So that means there around ~750,000 households at that level or more edit: Screwed the calculation. Assuming 300M and 4 people per household. Thanks hugh3
Still, this is what I was curious about -- is it possible the journalist screwed up the numbers? Five million bucks doesn't make you especially wealthy nowadays; it's more a "comfortable middle class retirement" sort of sum. And yet this guy supposedly had a net wealth of five million bucks, of which $2.34 million was in his primary house, $1 million in his secondary house and $600K was in his glider collection. Add in some cars and furniture and he would have less than $1 million left over for sensible income-producing investments.
Seems like an unwise proportion of his money was plunged into useless toys; he was trying to live like a super-rich man without the super riches to back it up. No wonder he was unhappy.
I never understood the sheltered life of the ultra-rich. Don't they realize how fake it all is?
Reality is what you see in front of you. Thanks for pointing that out.
"Special Relativity of Money"?
I find this fact to be singularly depressing.
I am, for example, very happy that I can get a drink of clean, safe water whenever I want.
I am very happy that I don't live in the middle of war.
I am very happy that nobody cares whether I vote or not, and that if I choose (or don't choose) to vote, no one will try to intimidate me with violence or death.
Life is good.
What's "faux" about it?
They clearly prefer it. How do you know that they're wrong? (Hint: they're not you.)
I do agree people may well prefer it. It had no community, but the houses were quite nice.
It almost sounds as if you despise the wealthy for the sake of it.
Seriously though, I believe I'd be most happy with just enough money to be able to work on the things that really interest me and not have to worry about making money from them (which is to say a lot of money, but not nearly enough to qualify as ultra-rich).