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Comment by monero-xmr | Hacker News Reader

Growing up poor and then becoming self-made wealthy - nothing like it. My life is so sweet because I am one of those fabled bootstraps people who walked 15 miles to school both ways uphill (paraphrasing).

And what is my favorite thing? I can buy any meal at any restaurant I want and I never care about the price. It’s a glorious feeling. I eat whatever I want. Unfathomable

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> I can buy any meal at any restaurant I want and I never care about the price. It’s a glorious feeling. I eat whatever I want. Unfathomable

My budget for food used to be limited by money, now it’s limited by calories.

Apparently you didn't pay attention in economics class. Human wants are infinite.

Nope. I've got everything I want. It's not a lot. I'm collecting a ton of money now that I don't know what to do with.

Promoting wants is the foundation of economics however.

> I'm collecting a ton of money now that I don't know what to do with.

Why not increase your desires.

Time is limited. Doing too much detracts from what I do want to do.

Ah yea if you found your purpose in life that doesn't need money that is just nirvana.

I'm sure it'll wear off one day but I'm going to live it now.

I did pay attention in physics. I learned that cows are approximately spherical and live in a vacuum.

And time. Restaurants are very time consuming.

Not really. Include food prep and clean up in your equation.

You can order takeout.

Depends on when you visit them. If you go at peak, the wait times get pretty bad. If you go not too long before the peak, things usually go much faster as it may be fully staffed already. If you go between peaks, things get slow because the kitchen may not be fully staffed or is also working on prepping for the rush.

Happy for you. I hope to one day be able to honestly express “this is a good life, and I am experiencing things that were unfathomable when I was younger”.

Care to share any details about how you did it in the context of a website dedicated to an older root of the word hacker than the more modern meaning?

The only reliable way of creating a huge fortune from scratch is to start a business. Many failures for me before it worked out.

So it isn't so reliable after all, according to your own testimony.

There are many reasons to start a business. I like doing so because the most honorable path IMO is serving others - I make more money the more I provide people what they want. They voluntarily give my businesses money. That’s far superior to being paid by taxes, stealing, inheriting it, and so on. Voluntarily receiving money from people who desire the services of my businesses is the best thing I can provide humanity. Becoming wealthy was a consequence of serving a huge amount of people well.

The latter part of my life will involve various ways of using my wealth in ways I see benefit society. This will be very unique to my own style.

From this I derive that you believe you are compensated for the good you do humanity. I, too, hope this is true. Thanks for answering my question and defending your position.

> ... can buy any meal at any restaurant I want and I never care about the price. It’s a glorious feeling. I eat whatever I want.

This. Not quite there yet, but still have a decent selection of restaurants where I do not have to look at the right-margin. It is truly a sense of freedom one can only experience in hindsight (not consciously while looking at the menu).

Good for OP.

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