I was joking with my brother that this narrative of "being rich must be miserable" is one of the greatest cons played on the middle class -- or just sour grapes. Taleb states: if you control your preferences you are way way way ahead of the crowd--most people become rich to impress other rich people and lose their personal preferences in the process. The treadmill effect is wild.

Note: we were born in Africa moved to NA and slept in a one bedroom apartment with our parents like sardines. Fast foward to now and life is much better. I am not rich by any stretch.

When people born here (western world) say being rich isnt worth it I laugh. You're used to a certain level of safety net that we know is not sustainable and is soon to disappear (in my humble opinion). We are Zimbabwean (left 2001)

Lots of people move to SF to get rich (and succeed, for some definition of rich) but end up losing their friends, not seeing their families, forgoing having their own families, living with lots of roommates, etc.

If someone just hands you $1 million, then sure, it's great. But if you're sacrificing your mental or physical health to earn that $1 million the hard way, you could definitely come out the other side rich and worse off.