Is getting rich worth it?

<i>The next thing you need to understand about money is this: all of the things you picture buying, they are only worthwhile to you because you cannot afford them (or have to work really hard to acquire them).</i><p>That was one of the biggest surprises for me. I never realized the degree to which not being able to afford certain things was what was making me want them. That childhood excitement of saving up your money to buy some coveted thing is completely gone. And without it you find you covet the thing far less. When you realize you can bring it home from the store whenever you want, you're often surprised to find yourself thinking "let them keep it there for now."<p>Curiously, this affects people in different ways. When the excitement of e.g. buying a fancy car is diminished by 10x, some people respond by buying 10 fancy cars, and others just lose interest. I turned out to be in the latter group, and judging from what I've seen in SV, a lot of HN readers probably also would be.<p>It's slightly sad, in the way that losing one's appetite or sexual desire might be. On the other hand, you're arguably less of a slave to people marketing luxuries, and the other things you long for might be more worth longing for.

&#62; <i>Most people now want something out of you</i><p>This is a common mistake, esp among the newly wealthy who are young: The last thing you want is for anyone to know that you are wealthy.<p>There are many ways to make sure people stay ignorant of your wealth. For the people (and dates) that don't know your wealth, then you sure as hell don't educate them by words or bling. For people that know you had an exit, they never saw the documents and don't know what your number was. And if they probe, then "the investors got most of it, and uncle sam took half of the rest. At least I made a profit."<p>And the truth is: Yes, having the money is nicer than not having it, but it really doesn't make your life worth living or give it meaning. That requires a great deal more effort.<p>Edit: I think Prawks should be top HN comment. <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5182922" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5182922</a>

Nice post but the guy completely forgot to say that over a certain level of richness you start to stop worryng about <i>work</i>.<p>That for most people here means probably to work even more, but just coding what they believe is significant, when you feel with the right energy, and not what the current company / job believes it is.<p>I believe there is a significant amount of people that every day wake up and go make something they believe it is useless, just to pay the bills. Richness can stop this massive personal sacrifice.<p>Clarification: As you can guess I'm very happy with my current job, the problem is, I wrote useless code for many years when I started to pay my bills as a programmer. Later I created companies and I was able to escape the sadness of writing useless code. However the fear of returning into this condition is always present, especially with a loan that I used to purchase a new house, children, and so forth.

I want to get rich.<p>But I don't want to do it because I want stuff. I don't want a Audi, or a Maserati, or a fancy home, or the newest gadget.<p>I have a objective, a plan, for me, and for future generations, and I know how much it will cost, and doing it will require me to be rich.<p>And I know how much problems it will attract, how much relationships it will wreck, and how much danger it will bring to my life.<p>But I don't want to get rich for pure hedonism, far form that, it is because of my beliefs, I believe some stuff need to be done, and I concluded that few people will do it, meaning that I will have to do it, since I have to do it, I will figure a way to get rich, and do it.<p>To me, it will be worth, because it will be having the means of pursuing what I believe, but it will also be a sacrifice, it will be the opposite of a life that I had for a long time, it will be the opposite of being laid back, almost lazy, work only for pleasure, and live a peaceful life. It will mean politics, hardwork, backstabbing...<p>But I believe I have a duty to do, and I must do it, and I will venture doing that, and when I get rich, I know I will have to fight very hard to use the money for what I planned, instead of wasting it all in pleasurable stuff.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill</a><p>"The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Brickman and Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971).[2] During the late 1990s, the concept was modified by Michael Eysenck, a British psychologist, to become the current "hedonic treadmill theory" which compares the pursuit of happiness to a person on a treadmill, who has to keep working just to stay in the same place."

The original post on Quora:<p><a href="http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it</a>

&#62; First, one of the only real things being rich gives you is that you don't have to worry about money as much anymore.<p>I disagree with this. One thing being rich gives you is the ability to make things happen.<p>Being a benefactor of a cause or artistic organization or an investor in a startup means that you can help set into motion meaningful projects that you believe in that would not otherwise have been possible. I'm a singer and one group I sing with has a benefactor who has financed all of our recording projects. We put his name in the CD notes and that guy can know that without his support the CD simply could not have happened. I have to believe that's a deeply gratifying feeling.

I'm not rich, but when i was a teenager and still living with my parents i went from being without heating for a month in the winter because we couldnt afford the bills to now where i earn more than enough to live. I've experienced what the author is talking about.<p>I remember having to make sure we only spent a certain amount on food and clothes and now i dont even need to consider such a thing. Day to day life is better by a country mile knowing i have enough money to pay for general life expenses. I still cant go out an buy a car without thinking about it, but i could buy a TV without thinking about it.<p>Once you have that level of complacency you start aspiring to other things and its difficult to maintain a level. I like good food and once went to the best restaurant in my city i spent £250 for a meal for 2 and i didnt care about the money, i <i>could</i> do that once every few weeks, but i wouldnt do it more than once/twice every year, because i know it would bring my level of expectancy higher.<p>I think its important you keep yourself comfortable, but dont allow yourself to get used to the finer things you love, because then you wont love them any more and you'll expect them and they wont be special any more.

Proletarians suffer from the four kinds of alienation Marx referred to in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1) alienation from products (2) alienation from the act of production (3) alienation from ones own life (4) alienation from fellow laborers. The forms of alienations the bourgeoisie have to go through are not nearly as acute as the alienation of the proletariat.<p>Perhaps the most important aspect of being as rich as a bourgeoisie is that you have a secure existence. You don't have to worry about finding a job, paying for health care, paying child support, paying rent on time so that you don't have to join the masses of homeless people living in the cold, or any of the other things ordinary people have to worry about. Having a secure existence is a major stress reliever and it makes your life better no question.

I want to get rich, not for the sake of it, the "power" or statue. I want to get rich so I can fulfill some of my dreams - I want to live near my birthplace where the job opportunities aren't so good, I want to own a snooker table and a nice house and most of all I don't want the pressure to always have to provide for my eventual family.<p>I want to get rich so I can get away with working with fun, but high risk, projects without having to live like a student. I would like to be able to make indie games for a living, but the risk is too big for me to stake my family on.

I'd rather have wealth than money. I'd rather live in a world where our needs are met through a wealth of automation than be a rich man today.<p><i>Money Is Not Wealth<p>If you want to create wealth, it will help to understand what it is. Wealth is not the same thing as money. [3] Wealth is as old as human history. Far older, in fact; ants have wealth. Money is a comparatively recent invention.<p>Wealth is the fundamental thing. Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. If you had a magic machine that could on command make you a car or cook you dinner or do your laundry, or do anything else you wanted, you wouldn't need money. Whereas if you were in the middle of Antarctica, where there is nothing to buy, it wouldn't matter how much money you had.</i><p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html</a>

The mere suggestion that all of us middle-class schmucks are out here dreaming of an Audi or some other bling shows how out of touch he/she is with middle class America. Maybe that's the way it was in the 1980s, but now most of us in the middle class are just desperately trying to pay rising insurance bills, electricity bills, childcare, groceries, and clawing with all our might to not fall out of the middle class. I can honestly say I haven't thought about wanting money for something that wasn't an absolute necessity for a decent middle class life since my early 20s (I'm in my late 30s now). Many of us don't even dream about getting rich -- we just dream of having enough income to pay the bills. Based on my experiences, and that of my peers, middle class life around the country is changing drastically. I've watched a number of families formerly in the upper middle class fall into the mundane middle class, and middle class folks fall into the lower classes. I wonder if the boom in SV has isolated many of you from this. If that's the case, I'm sincerely glad you don't have to deal with it -- it's depressing to do well in school and work hard, only to see the dreams of a stable, secure middle-class life float away. For most of us, it's just paycheck to paycheck now.

I know a few rich and I haven't seen something mentioned here:<p>Everything becomes boring. Hobbies are awesome because you have to anticipate and wait to do them. Imagine doing nothing but your hobbies 14 hours a day. Then when you're bored of all your hobbies you have nothing else to do. So you hit up vegas. That lasts 2-3 years then you call it. Anecdotal? Yes, but I've seen it happen way too often.<p>Figure out something to do. Just something, start a cheap cafe and hire workers, a manufacturing plant for wallpaper, whatever. Just have something to do thats not all about you so you don't have to keep asking yourself what should I do now? Becuase that question will become a thorn in your side.

I want to get rich because money, that commonplace, almost vulgar device, can be traded for time, the most precious thing in the universe, and for influence, a multiplier of time/action that can help me to achieve more good things in my life.

Can't most of these great injustices be solved by the newly rich person not bragging about it and living roughly on what they were consuming before plus 25-50%?<p>Yeah, yeah, you just got this big chunk of change and you want to spend it on Tesla cars and the French Laundry and vacation homes! But when you engage in flagrant consumption people notice and start wanting in on the action.<p>Figure out what the average amount consumed for someone in the 90th percentile and stick strictly to that budget (and you won't be taking on debt to do it!). Throw any excess money you have around in interesting investments and social ventures. Even if people find out you're loaded, if you're living modestly they'll know not to expect you to act that differently.

Flagged for linking to a site that is blatantly stealing content. Link should go to the original on Quora:<p><a href="http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it</a>

I'd like to become rich. Not to buy stuff I can't buy today but because of the possibilities it gives you. If you have a few millions in your bank account, you can take whatever job you like, create a company without fearing that failure will put you on the street etc. Then again I can imagine the downsides, as the article explains. I think it all boils down to "dont tell people how rich you are".<p>Tldr version: <a href="http://tldr.io/tldrs/5113da0cb507aa413100001d/is-getting-rich-worth-it" rel="nofollow">http://tldr.io/tldrs/5113da0cb507aa413100001d/is-getting-ric...</a>

Everyone live in their own personal bubble. Go volunteer at a food bank sometimes.

I guess I just can't follow these thoughts. Of course if your alternatives are "be rich" or "not be rich" than it is worth it. Why wouldn't it be? If the option is "abandon your family to attempt to get rich" versus "prioritize your family such that you are comfortable," it seems the latter will win.<p>Also, just because you get "rich" doesn't mean anyone else has to know that. It just means you no longer have to worry about money income problems. Please do not underestimate that, as that is HUGE.

My plan, if I ever manage to get rich, is to live like a student forever, without having to go to work. I don't really care for owning things, as long as I have got a bass guitar, a laptop and a cat, I'm happy.

I don't want to be rich, per se... I'd rather simply obtain "financial independence" where I am sufficiently happy with what I have and I can do what I absolutely love to do for a living and not necessarily have to worry about money. Getting "rich" would just simply jump me quicker to this state of "financial independence."

<i>Don't give a loan to friends and family. Give a gift.</i><p>I'm not rich. But I do follow this one principle that I also strongly recommend.

Despite reading the entire post, I still want to be rich. That's pretty telling about how marginal all these problems sound to someone without money.

This quora thread provided a great deal of illumination for me on the question "Is getting rich worth it?"<p><a href="http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it" rel="nofollow">http://www.quora.com/Wealth/Is-getting-rich-worth-it</a><p>Top answer summary: Here's my answer: being rich is better than not being rich, but it's not nearly as good as you imagine it is.

As much as I am working my butt off right now, if I don't get rich then it wouldn't have been worth it. When I do get rich, and for some reason I find it wasn't worth the sacrifices, then I will lie to myself about it. Humans have an amazing capacity for denial.

My putting arguments from an explicitly European perspective always gets me in trouble here. But here I go.<p>There may (MAY) be some Socalization [sic] going on here. I.e. Americans think this is what people do in America, therefore they must be like this everywhere.<p>Americans might keep expecting you to give them a car as a Christmas present. Europeans would never be so materialistic as to want or expect one. Have at it.<p>The overall TCO of a nice German car is easily $1m. So most people don't understand that 15m is only 15 cars. And I mean only. And you can't buy anything else on that hypothetical basis.<p>Is my partner into my or my money? Maybe I DON'T know the answer to that. But I'm past caring.

So, according to the author if you let people already in your life know about your wealth, they may act weird and have unreasonable expectations about sharing in your wealth. I think that can be a good thing. It brings out a side of people you never knew. It could tell you who your true friends and family are. The true ones are the ones who don't expect a free ride.

I object to the idea expressed near the end...that if you aren't happy now, money will not change that. While I am nowhere near as rich as the author, my financial situation has changed drastically in the last year. The lack of stress that I now experience is absolutely a factor in my increased happiness.

This title is slightly misleading." Most of the downsides he has about being rich revolve around OTHERS KNOWING THAT HE IS RICH, and are not a product of him actually being rich.<p>The post should be titled,"Why I Don't Want Anyone To Know When I Strike It Rich, Especially My Relatives."

Not for me but I do need enough money to fulfill what I want to. No excessive money needed.

Is eating healthier, living in a better environment, having access to better health services etc worth it? In the capitalist system you can't have them without a non trivial amount of money.

He says "being rich is better than not being rich..."<p>So sure it is worth it. Totally understood that it introduces other complications or it may not be as fulfilling as you imagined.

I don't know if its worth it, but I don't really like the alternative (being broke). These days, you either have money or you don't. There is no middle class.

My dad only gave me a few bits of advice, but on money he said, "Money does not buy happiness, but it does whitewash a lot of problems".

A good target would be to become a person worthy of the wealth. This is also the reason why lottery winners are said to go bust.

Honestly, I want to get rich. To have a stable life. To prove my self worth.

Money is the world's curse. May the Lord smite me with it.

There's only one way to find out for yourself.

Wealth simply amplifies who you already are.

Yes. Next question.<p>An extremely authoritative opinion from some Anonymous that appears more like speculations doesn't count.

Do this experiment: 1. Go to Google.com 2. Enter "filthy stinking" into the box 3. Notice the first autocomplete suggestion