The Rich Aren’t Any Happier Than You and Me
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The Rich Aren’t Any Happier Than You and Me…
Funny how we expect that they would be. In our mixed up world we have some how created a connection between money and lack of problems.
Anyways I’ve been travelling this week and some stewardess threw a newspaper at me while on route to Vancouver. Normally I never read them but on the front page was the following story:
“What do the rich fret over? Lazy offspring” [you can download the original research paper on the T. Stenner Group True Wealth website]
The article features a summary of questions asked to 165 high net worth [> $10 million] individuals in Canada. The number 2 worry for these folks was the lazy offspring one featured in the headline, the gist of it was that many of the people interviewed were self made entrepreneurs and they feared that growing up wealthy would reduce the drive, motivation and work ethic of their children…probably a valid concern.
The number 1 worry of the high net worth individual was that they would not be able to maintain their current lifestyle. This one I find very interesting. There’s a saying “Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all” but it seems when it comes to money this in not the case.
It’s not hard to see why. Once you get used to the “good life” of being able to spend almost at your heart’s content, going back to the world of financial constraint could be a cause for serious depression. It’s easy to use money as a feel good and anyone who does will naturally have fear that the good times will end.
So knowing that money won’t make you happier you won’t want to check out Forbes’ look at the most expensive private islands.
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Comments ( 1 Comment )
Michael Muryn added these pithy words on Mar 25 06 at 9:31 amMaybe it is the opposite… people often associate money with problem. Because they “feel” like it is a main cause. However money doesn’t control everything.
It is like those sport stars that are being criticized because they don’t give enough for their “very high” salary. Those kinds of critics arise with amateur sport star too. However people use the excuse of money to criticize the one who win more than them.
And it is not true that because you get more money that you are automatically more in shape, always motivated, etc. – doh!
Of course, being free of mind in a dimension of your life (i.e. money) can help you concentrate on other dimension, but you still have to do the effort to focus on those other important dimensions! (e.g. health, social, etc.)