Wealth and Misery

It is often observed that the obscenely wealthy tend to be unhappy. It is also often the case that people echo, with a great sense of pride, that money does not buy happiness. It has been repeated enough that I almost roll my eyes upon hearing it.

You see, if people merely stated it as a fact it wouldn't cause them any problems. When someone takes pride in the statement that money doesn't buy happiness, they are often convinced that money actually prevents happiness, which is entirely untrue.

The truth is that money and happiness aren't very closely related. Beyond certain material comforts and security, money has almost nothing to do with happiness. The unhappiness often suffered by the wealthy cannot be tied to a single external cause. Like all unhappiness, the cause is internal.

Imagine you have a goal. This goal is so grand that it consumes your every waking moment. This goal is so important to you that you have come to believe, perhaps not even consciously, that achieving it will put your life into a state of perfection. Everything will be settled. Problems will shrink into oblivion.

When you reach this goal you feel elated. The high may even last a couple weeks. And then it goes away as you become accustomed to the new norm. Your dissatisfaction begins to creep back in when you realize your life is still the same as it was before. So you double down. You set an even higher goal.

You spend the next decade of your life working on it before it materializes. Sure, your life isn't perfect while working towards the new goal, but it doesn't matter. All your troubles are insignificant when weighed against the life you will have after you arrive.

When you finally reach your new destination, you once again experience the feelings of elation. And once again, those feelings disappear, this time much more quickly.

Suddenly the world around you seems depressing. Everything is still unsettled. The pains of your mind still continue in full force. Your relationships are the same as they have always been.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you realize that you will never reach a point where you have truly "made it". No set of circumstances will change who you are. Nothing external will permanently satisfy you.

The only mistake is to assume that this is where the story ends.

This is where it begins.