Wheel of Fortune?

“Our acts can be no wiser than our thoughts, our thinking can be no wiser than our understanding.” – George S. Clason

Many plebs have heard the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words". This certainly applies to the graphic I am going to paint in this post so lets dig in!

As a child, you don't give money much thought. However, as you age, the story changes. It is advised that you earn good grades in high school to be admitted to a prestigious university. After you enroll at your university, you must maintain good grades, pick the appropriate degree program, and finish a strong internship in order to be hired in a competitive field. Why do you desire a job that is competitive? Obviously, you want to make a lot of money. The beginning salary for various majors and professional choices are listed on a rubric that is available at every university career center. Your education is focused entirely on helping you choose the career path that will bring in the greatest money.

Let’s take a personal degree path of finance specifically. You become a good pleb and go heavy into consulting and investment banking…after busting your ass off you finally land your dream job and let’s say you are a top 1% applicant and the most prominent consulting firm in the world, McKinsey & Company, has just hired you and is paying you $150k. Congrats pleb, you've won. Well, the first exhilaration wears off after a few weeks. You spend more than 70 to 80 hours a week working on reports, creating presentation decks, and traveling from Monday through Thursday, so your job isn't exactly making you happy. But you're picking up a lot, and if you are promoted next year, your salary would go up to $250k. You work extremely hard to earn that promotion, add more duties, and $250,000. You arrive there after that. Well, the first exhilaration wears off after a few weeks. Even now, you're unsatisfied. However, if you can only reach associate partner level, you will earn $500k! You bust your ass to get that promotion, take on more responsibilities, and make $500k. And the cycle continues. There goes the first 10 years of your career.

Pretty somber eh? lol

Pleb Expectations

Here is how we think we will feel with more money.

Here is how we actually feel:

This is not a coincidence nor bullshit as it sounds. Actually, it's typical. How come? When something positive occurs, people have a tendency to return to the same level of relative happiness, which social scientists refer to as the "hedonic treadmill." Interesting enough, when something negative occurs, we also revert to the same level of enjoyment.

This is why those who win the lottery briefly feel a rise in satisfaction before falling back to their previous level. This also explains maybe why amputee victims also feel a temporary surge of hopelessness before regaining their baseline. That raise in pay I mentioned earlier? Your winning lottery ticket is that one. And no matter of how much you want to hang onto that dopamine rush, it always fades away.

The craziest part about this whole thing? There are countless people stuck in this cycle of chasing promotion after promotion. Raise after raise. Many don’t even enjoy what they do, it’s just all they know. And every time they reach another milestone, that hedonic treadmill pulls them right back down.

New Highscore!

Money becomes your scoreboard when you start chasing it for its own purpose. Money is observable, simple to track, and frequently used as a benchmark in modern culture and our everyday lives.

Say I earned $50,000 in the past. I get $100,000 after a promotion and a new job. I am actually earning twice as much money. My rating is two times higher. We keep attempting to set new scores because it feels nice to do so. With your paycheck, it's simple to fall victim to the loop of "reaching a new high score." As a result, you never stop pursuing it. But if there is no score cap, you can never win. But we keep attempting to gain more points, like a hamster on a wheel.

You tell yourself that once you hit $X target, you’ll let off the gas.

“Once I make $5 million, I’ll slow down at work.”

But it won't happen like that. An addicted person will continue to smoke. An alcoholic will not stop. An adulterer will continue to lie. When your career has been measured by money, money is all you have ever known. At this stage, it has become embedded in your mind. Perhaps you do pause for a time. But one day, you take another look at the scoreboard. And you get the urge to try again for a better score.

Like the hamster, you’ll hop back on the wheel. Because it’s all you know.

To Infinity and Beyond

Everyone aspires to be wealthy. Would you, however, switch places with Warren Buffett at this very moment? You must be 91 years old to have $100 billion in net wealth, though. I have my doubts the average pleb would take up that offer. Consider a different exchange: Jeff Bezos. Would you trade places with a 20-something to become a 57-year-old with $200 billion if you had the option?

Let's ask the opposite of the question. How much cash would Bezos be willing to part with to take your place as a 20-30 something year old? most likely a lot. While the richest people in the world would swap their fortunes for more time, so many people spend their 20s and 30s working hard to accumulate as much money as possible. Talk about the irony..

Money is an infinite asset with unlimited upside. Time is a finite asset slowly ticking down to 0. Yet we focus more on accumulating as much money as possible, time be damned.

How much of the finite are you willing to sacrifice for the infinite?

Optimization

No amount of money will satisfy you if you are chasing money for money’s sake.

The person earning $60k envies his friend, who earns $100k. But that guy is jealous of his $250k-a-year boss, who lives in a magnificent house. who is jealous of his neighbor who earns $600k, owns a boat, and a cabin in the mountains. Who is the envy of…?

You get the picture. The constant struggle to keep up with the Joneses. It's backwards that our society has made making money the ultimate objective. Money is a tool that aids in your goal-achieving. Do not mistake the tool for the objective.

It's crucial to step back and ask yourself, "What are my goals?" or even more crucially, "What am I optimizing for, and how much money will it take to get there?"

Plebs are just playing the game. Chasing the next dollar and there is no end goal. You want to stop at a million but know you never would…. how could you? Like a hamster on a wheel, it is all we know. So, what now? What are you optimizing for? a life full of adventures would be great. Because I believe that a journal filled with thousands of stories would be preferable to a bank account filled with millions of dollars in 60 years.

Do I still desire financial success? No doubt. I'm absolutely going to stay on top of that. But I can maximize an experience-rich existence with the aid of money.

Either you can utilize money, or it will use you. Your time is limited; however, money is boundless. What will you do it for? a financially secure existence with a wealth of adventures or back on the hamster wheel because it’s all you know.