out of interest does anyone know anybody who's filthy rich, but leading a pitiful, miserable, insignificant existance that is like purgetory on earth for them?
What a crock. Yet another of these wonderful invented "syndromes" inheritant of our modern society. The unfortunate thing TnT is I know somebody who has supposedly been "diagnosed" with something along those lines. And the looks I got when I heard this and started rolling around the floor laughing.
Boo-hoo. I have everything. I want a challenge in life, but I'm so bored. Boo-hoo.
A long-term sometimes friend (he cheated me several times in business deals, but always eventually followed up later with some kind of adequate and usually interesting recompense) was hardly affluent when we first met. As I occasionally saw him, in passing, he would tell me about his various enterprises and deals. He usually looked very worried about the days and weeks to come.
Page forward a few years. Passing by on a trip, I dropped in unexpectedly for a visit and was surprised to discover that his old home had taken on a new shine. Marble and gilt covered much, where previously were less fancy surfaces. His girlfriend of the moment was sharper and foxier. He had somehow crested the financial hill and decided that he was officially wealthy. (the tax people had pointed it out, he said.) At this point he was smug and vaingloriously happy.
A year or so later.. another drop-in visit. More marble, more gilt, very fancy auto and a new girlfriend with more charm and looks than any predecessor. He was miserable.
He explained it simply enough: "all those years I was trying to get ahead with the business, I worked myself crazy. Now I make (a very large sum) every few months and don't have to do anything. The PROBLEM is - I'm getting old......I don't have the energy anymore, and I wont have time to SPEND IT ALL."
I work for someone who is extremely successful in his chosen line of business, but he derives no happiness from it, just a continual sense of insecurity and what I am now suspecting is developing paranoid schizophrenia.
I keep pointing out the cemeteries full of the richest people in the world, but the point seems to go right over his head.
Money certainly hasn't bought him any happiness, just an obsessive compulsive disorder. As long as he remains obsessive compulsive about paying his bills, I guess I have to keep working for him.
Alas our cemetaries are also awash with equaly miserable poor people as well, in fact theres a lot more of em, they mostly occupy the cheaper end though.
Location: Not the end of the world but I can see it from here!
Age: 43
Posts: 118
I've got friends who earn more a year than I could in a lifetime, they are happy but their free income is no more than mine when comparing like for like. If you are rich your bills are bigger
I am getting to the stage where I can help out my brother with his divorce from his complete adulterous witch of a wife by buying HER out of the family home. I can help out my parents by paying for the litigation they are having to instigate against the bullying property developer who is making their lives, and those of all the other neighbours affected by his unprincipled activities, a misery.
So not rich, but well enough off to be able to give peace of mind to the people I love. If that's not what you're using it for, there's no point having the money in the first place, IMHO!
Money can´t buy you happiness, but poverty is a lot more likely to lead to misery. And if you are miserable, money can make living in it a lot more comfortable......
There seems to be a general level of basic agreement here. I've never been rich, but I've never not known where my next dollar was coming from. If I chose to bet every last dollar on the final race and lose, which I did regularly back in the 70's, that was my problem. In three days time I would be paid again, and I could conveniently turn up at friends' places at dinner time in between......
To those who are church-mouse poor and happy, I say congratulations, but I don't want to join you.
To those with obscene wealth who insist on displaying it with conspicuous consumption, I feel nothing but contempt for you.
For those with obscene wealth who keep a solid grounding and create foundations so their wealth can help fill in some of the cracks in our "compassionate society" I feel grateful. For those in that category who do so anonymously I feel genuine admiration.
How pleasant to look and absorb text like that, it puts me in mind of a proverb what I just wrote.
If yer can't be kind to people get off the planet and stop wasting resources.
