Why Money Can’t Buy Happiness: Just Look at the Rich

Most people say that they want to be rich, but people never truly consider what it means in detail. From my point of view, the more money we have, the crazier activities we start doing, with the super rich constantly doing something completely crazy. So let’s indeed consider how crazy our lives would become if suddenly we get more money than we can spend. 

The Craziness of Being Super Rich 

This is what I imagine the life of a super rich means:

• Having a boat, the biggest boat one can buy/build.
• Having several mansions.
• Having new clothes for literally every day of your life.
• Having enough cars that you never get bored driving the same one. 
• Eating only the best products on the market, prepared by the best chefs that money can buy.
• Going shopping and buying anything you want, just because you can.
• Having several collections of objects you consider being interesting. 
• Getting involved in some unusual activities, such as traveling to space (such as it has been done recently by Jeff Bezos) or playing polo (aka sport of the rich).
• Regularly flying to exclusive travel destinations (preferably on a private jet) and staying in five star hotels. 
• Befriending other super famous and rich people.

This is what is my is like life now:

• Minimalism: currently, I own only two backpacks. One contains my clothes and other necessities and the second contains the electronics I need. If I decide to buy something, I would throw something else away. As such, if I want to buy something new, I need to be certain that this new object will be better than anything else I own.

Now, I’m not Jeff Bezos, but I am happy with what I have got. I don’t need more money to be even happier, and I purposefully try to live below my perceived level of needs to further reinforce this point into my psychology. Sure, anyone would like to have an extra couple million dollars if only for the “peace of mind” it can provide. On the other hand, I wrote this article almost as a reminder for myself as to what most people would do if they had more money. Here, again and again, I conclude that it would have to be some ridiculous, extravagant, and somewhat crazy lifestyle, which is unnecessary and often destructive towards planet Earth. It is also a lifestyle that most desire, but few can have, meaning that people who don’t have it become unhappy because they are not living it up as it is described in the “craziness of the super rich.” 

After all, we are all told that theoretically we can achieve these highs, and anything less than that means that we are not smart, dedicated, or yet successful enough, and we need to try even harder to achieve that level of ridiculousness, even if it seems (and certainly it should seem) crazy to people with lesser means.