<i>First, as long as your basic needs are met, your happiness is only vaguely related to material success.</i><p>This is true. Another thing that is true is that many people have difficulty figuring out how to meet their basic needs, even when they have lots of money. Meeting basic needs is mostly not about money per se. It is about the fabric of society working well. It is about dealing with human needs that go beyond physical sustenance.<p>Also, wealthy people can have "dozens of friends and the fun never ends -- that is, as long as I'm buying." People can become poisoned by that experience.<p>Another thing he doesn't really touch on: There is a big difference between making your wealth and winning it. About 2/3 of lottery winners are bankrupt within five years and it often just ruins their life.
“So I won’t even pretend to know that struggle.”<p>Let’s try some ideas about what that million can buy one (particularly in dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself America), beyond even just the basics like food (though depending on the environment you were raised in, one’s definition of “basics” may differ). Some come from my own experience or those I’ve known:<p>- The ability to stay in the place you were born without getting priced out, or the ability to move out of your crime-ridden neighborhood or dilapidated apartment that happens to be very cheap.<p>- The ability to attend university without worrying about debt or having to drop out due to living expenses. It also means you can focus on your studies — achieve immersion — rather than thinking about whether you’re going to be able to pay that electric bill this month.<p>- The ability to say “no” to bad jobs when you otherwise might not be able to. We call it “FU” money, but it could also be called “Ability to say no to a bad deal” money.<p>- The ability to stop working for an extended period of time so you can re-skill or upskill, rather than spending all your after-work time doing so, which slows down the process and may not always be possible if you’re working long hours. Web development boring? Drop out for a few months and learn Machine Learning. Hate working at Starbucks? Stop for a year and learn to code, learn marketing, or learn about whatever more lucrative thing you want to do.<p>- The ability to stop working and focus on what you really like to do full-time. Write open source software, make art, work at that risky startup that you believe in, or work at that low-pay animal shelter that means so much to you.<p>- The ability to stop worrying about aging out of your profession. You can re-skill or change careers altogether.<p>The most important, and perhaps unappreciated benefit is the ability to stop constantly worrying about money. To stop having to think about it all the time. To stop waking up in the middle of the night worrying about getting laid off, about your company shutting down, whether you’re getting too old for your profession, or about whether it’s a “good idea” to leave that miserable relationship where the other person happens to be helping by paying half the rent and bills.<p>The thing that million can buy you is something that’s worth more than the million itself, and it has nothing to do with any buzz, but it’s something only the money can get you: the simultaneous feelings of freedom and safety.<p>As he states, he never had to worry about the basics being taken care of, so that might reflect his equanimity about his wealth now. The article also shows what a country willing to truly support its poor can do right out of the gate; Denmark's #1 on OECD's social mobility index (as per the Economist, in Denmark, a poor child has twice as much chance of making it to the top quintile as in America.)