Not caring enough about money?
Hey all,
In high school, I was into making money (day trading, startups).
By senior year, I realized I could instead chase impact -- so I didn’t think about money for 1.5 years.
I feel anger when I hear people saying their reason to do things was because of money. Yet, I feel fear knowing that one day it will make all the difference. My parents are immigrants who run liquor stores. My dad unfortunately is addicted to his own product; despite what it looks like to others, money is still an issue. Looking back (19m), I realize I have an unhealthy relationship with money.
What am I not understanding?
Thanks!
11 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 26.2 ms ] threadYou can also work a normal job to make reliable money to support yourself, and allocate some of your earnings to help others and make an impact… or even just your time. This can help bring some more purpose to your work, regardless of what it is.
Same with your money as participant in the economy. Maintaining a healthy flow and preparing for the future is a good idea. But remember that fundamentally money is supposed to be a measure of value, not value itself (the tragedy of our society is confusing the map with the territory).
Continue focusing on impact and the money will follow. At the same time you still want to have a healthy balance and stable trajectory on the day-to-day and month-to-month without that turning into minmaxing or letting it direct your life-choices to an unhealthy degree. You'll probably want some form of income - not necessarily in the 1%.
If you have enough money and you can stop worrying about it, that seems like a healthy relationship with money. When you don't have much, it's a good thing to focus on, but prioritizing other things is great, if you can.
Your parent is an unfortunate case. I know this personally, as I was an alcoholic for many years, and I only quit relatively recently. [1] But for every alcoholic like myself there are probably a hundred people who find alcohol to truly be an enjoyable addition to their lives, well worth the downsides.
I would say don't overgeneralize from your parent's experiences. It is quite possible they may have ended up in a bad way even if they didn't run a liquor store. The true lesson the is to be cautious around alcohol yourself, as it unfortunately appears to have a strong genetic component, but do continue moving towards greater money/impact - that's almost always a life improving stance.
[1]: https://andrew-quinn.me/1000-days-without-drinking/
If it flows too fast, it's bad. If it's too slow, it's even worse. Central banks control the flow to make sure it's not too fast or too slow. Stuff like AI is like caffeine, meth, a stimulant. You risk problems with resources moving too fast, even if they moved to the right areas.
If you needed more blood, you'd work out. You'd improve muscle efficiency or lung effectiveness.
If you needed more money, you can't really chase the money, you'd chase productivity or cut costs.
Some people might say the analogy doesn't work because you can just hoard money. But it has to move. To quote Finite and Infinite Games, property must be seen as compensation. And property must be seen to be consumed - wealth is performance. If someone with wealth does not show that they are worthy of it, it will be taken from them by force e.g. taxes. The thief does not take someone else's property, he takes what he believes is rightfully his.
Don't aim to be rich, but try to have enough.
This might lead some to believe that the poor person cares greatly about the money, while the rich person probably couldn't care less. But this is often not the case. One of the reasons why some people are wealthy and others not, is how much attention they pay to small details. Poor people can be very frivolous with money, while rich people can be very frugal. The opposite can also be true, but how you handle money is not dependent on how much of it you have.