Have you ever read those stories about people winning at lottery and then, 2 or 3 years after, coming back to where they were? Or even lower? Like losing everything they won and then something?
I'm sure you did. It's a very common story.
On a very small scale, I experimented this too. At some point in my life, after a successful exit of a business I started and managed for about nine years, I found myself in the middle of a lifestyle I never experienced before. Like I said, the exit was successful. Financially, I was better than I was ever been, in my entire life.
But on a personal level, something was off. Yes, I was indulging in a new, bigger house, I was driving a big four-wheeler and, overall, I was living "the good life".
Only that life wasn't that good, to be honest.
It took me a few years, a lot of financial loss and some very transformative experiences to realize I was making the same confusion lottery winners are making: treating money as if it was meaning.
We live in a world which puts a lot of emphasis on money. I'm not trying to minimize its role, money is still a very necessary ingredient in our current level of samsara, but there is a lot of social pressure to perceive money as the universal cure to all our problems.
You don't have to be a genius to realize money isn't the universal cure to anything, and yet, we act like it is.
I also think that, deep down, we know very well money won't solve all our problems, but we choose to believe so, because it's simpler.
In many situations it's simpler to just pay for affection than to get it genuinely and unconditionally. Because that would require a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of implication. It would require care and understanding and patience.
It's simpler to just eat some chocolate instead of facing the internal void and understanding from where it comes and how to manage it.
It's a shortcut.
And so we roll our lives taking shortcut after shortcut, pursuing money, whereas, in fact, we're longing for meaning. We're longing for authenticity, for honesty and for a sense of order in this uninterrupted chaos, unfolding constantly, day after day, second by second. Money gives us the illusion that we can control it.
And, to some extent, money will control it. But money will not stop it, it will not transform it. Money may put some (much needed) food on the table, it may pay the rent and it may allow for better education, but it won't fill that inner void.
Money will help us survive, but we won't thrive.
And so I realized that, although I was having significantly more money than I was having when building the business, I was barely surviving. Of course, I lost pretty much everything I made in this process.
But, as poor as I got again, at the end of the process, I was a much happier being.
I made this detour about my personal ups and downs with a very clear goal in mind: namely, the rewards you get here, on Steemit. The money. The "precious" STEEM and SBD.
Having more of it won't make you happier. It may pay the rent, and that's great. It may bring you some more food on the table, and, yes, I know how hard in some places of the planet this can be. It may give you the opportunity to travel and I think that's amazing.
But, in and by itself, all the STEEM in the world won't make you a better person. It won't make you a happier person.
It's not about the destination, folks, it never was.
It is always about the journey.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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Was like reading my own story here, nice to hear this wisdom of you, let's never forget to enjoy the path, should be a daily reminder.
Excellent post and thoughts @dragosroua , I think I'm going to print it and put close to my computer.
Happiness is more than having lots of money 💰
What's important to note is that there are different levels of wealth that come with different baggage to them and leave people with a different outlook on the future. This is a bit of a generalization and won't cover everyone, but it is a reflection of what a large enough number of people go through.
Poverty has different shades to it. It's not just the people that have no place else to live but in the streets. It's those who could afford to live under a roof, those who at one time thought they could afford to raise a family. People who end up living day to day, never truly being sure if they could manage the next one.
Money, for them, is one of the most precious things possible. Because what happens when your child gets sick, and you can't afford medicine? What happens when a water pipe bursts, and you can't afford to fix it? What happens when you can't afford to pay the heating bill in the winter? Doom. Nothing short of it. And living with that, day after day, in that mentality, molds you into a way of life where there is nothing after tomorrow. There's no such thing as planning for the future, there's just surviving. If you stay there long enough, there's no coming out no matter how your financial situation changes. That's what you see very often from people winning big at the lottery. They have no framework for what to do with that money because they aren't conditioned to see past tomorrow. That's basically half our country. That's me for half my life.
When you go up a peg in wealth, you're in the situation where money really doesn't become the dominant factor, because you have enough of it so that it doesn't register as a desperate need. It's there. Like running water or indoor plumbing. Both are fantastic, marvelous, but if you grew up with them, they don't seem as fantastic as they would to someone that either had to contend with a smelly bucket in the winter, or dressing warmly and shoveling snow in the middle of the night just to get to the toilet.
It's in this level of wealth that chasing money doesn't make much sense, where you have the freedom to actualize and improve yourself, form relationships and grow as a person to the point where even if things start going bad, you're not trapped in the mindset of doom after tomorrow. You know there's a way out, you've seen it, you've been there. In that way, money does help you thrive. It lets you do what you want, what you are good at, what you can best help others as.
Then we get to the higher level of wealth. Here you basically have more money than you know what to do with. As I previously said, some people get here suddenly, unprepared, and just spend it all on frivolous things without any idea of what to actually do with it. Coming from the mindset that there is a day after tomorrow, that there is such a thing as a long term future will prepare you for what to do with such money. And in the best of cases it leads to people giving back to the community in the form of creating value for others. Businesses, jobs, investing in public infrastructure, sanitation, health, even charities. Because you're in a place where you realize that money won't bring you more happiness, but it can sure lessen the suffering of others. And that is a journey onto itself. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you get people buying Buggati Veiron's in a country with no serious highway infrastructure. You get people who believe that showing others how wealthy you are is the only reason to have wealth.
At least that's my take on things. I've been slowly worming my way out of the first category over the past decade and a half, and I gotta say that not needing to worry about money is doing a lot more than helping me survive.
It's amazing how many people commenting have had similar experiences. Especially when the lure to Steemit seems to be the money.
Yet, there are plenty of people here, too, who come because of the potentiality. While the possibility to receive compensation exists, the potential is something far greater. Changing the world, creating something others can appreciate, sharing a message of hope and happiness many can relate to. Those are just some of things Steem/Steemit has the potential to do. And I think more and more of us have been drawn here because of that.
I, too, have experienced what you and others have. The thing about it was, my wife and I stressed about not having money when we didn't have it, and we stressed over having it when we did have more, because the possibility of the "money" spigot being turned off was always looming. We could never really enjoy it because we we're constantly concerned with losing it.
Many of us will never experience what it's like to live in extreme poverty. And while some will talk in their own countries about how the top 1% are doing this or that, the fact of the matter is, the industrialized world is the top 1% to the rest of the world, so even in our relative poverty, we are going to be richer than many others.
Happiness can't be bought, but it can be obtained, and I look forward to obtaining it every day.
This is an incredible post that people need to really understand. I've experienced this personally but with an inheritance and stock options. Gone within a short period of time. It was only through personal development and looking at the shadow of one's self can you see beyond the enticing lure of what you think money can do for you.
Very cool article. I made a similar experience. During the dot-com boom, I made nearly one million in the stock market and then lost everything afterward (except my initial investment). But during the time I had the big bank account, I realized that the money did not make me happy. I did not spend any of the money. Well, we went out for dinner a lot :) But no Ferrari, no big house. I needed nothing besides my friends and the money for food and rent.
I'm not saying that money is not essential, it is, but it will only buy you happiness to a certain point.
Thanks for the reminder and as I sit here and think about it for a minute, it has definitely been one awesome journey so far.
Such a beautiful and different post from your usual content Dragos. It is so easy to forget it when you are on a Platform like Steemit where every action carries a monetary reward. Thanks for the gentle reminder, it has come at a good time :)
The systems we grew up in regarding money make it easy to assume more is better. If you're in abject poverty (or close to it) it's easy to agree with that assumption but if you have what you need and most of what you want, there comes a point when you should ask yourself if you should even seek more wealth and whether it's worth your time/energy to do so. Sometimes the answer is no.
money can't buy happiness and love.. I know someone who the lottery and ended up as a janitor after 6 months. he spent his money on celebrating and girls.
my grandfather once told me that if your chasing money you won't become happy.
I used to care so much about money and when I got the money I wanted , I was not happy ?! Because money can buy you certain things but happiness comes from within
The journey is really the only thing with meaning, and it should never end. You'll always find the destination to be less than you imagined, and even if it brings you momentary contentment, you'll soon find that there's another better destination in mind. Rather than having destinations in mind, consider the whole of your life as a journey, with momentary stops along the way. I've found this helpful in remaining in the moment and connected no matter where I am, what I'm doing, or what stage of life I'm traveling through.
Make sense, I experienced the same sensation at certain points of my life, I decided to make money not because this will make me happier, but because we live in a world where with money you can make some people in need smile :)
VERY GOOD ARTICLE so far my best today :)
Good thoughts @dragosroua.
There are studies stating that rich people on average are less happy.
I went through quite a similar experience like you, and I agree with the studies: I was less happy when I was the richest. No champaign or truffel could help there.
Maybe Janis was right, singing Freedom = nothing left to loose...
"Money will help us survive, but we won't thrive" , good quote
Money is a tool and they only increase the character we build in time. ( show the real character )
Thank you @toofasteddie for resteem, otherwise I would not have read this great post.
For some time now I can not help but think that today's world really lacks in vision. All comes down to money, big countries which used to lead the world, like USA, have all been about money and nothing else. America, Russia, Germany, France, United Kingdom... None of those great countries has a leader that has any greater vision then how to fix economic problems and make rich richer. The only problem is, money by itself is not enough to bring happiness to one person, let alone the humanity. Without clear further ambition and ideals we seem to be going backwards, not into the future. The whole world seems to be waiting for that one visionary or a leader to shake it up. Let's just hope this time around we don't get another Hitler...
Very true. Have goals set higher than a certain amount of Steem or portfolio value. Life is about so much more!
I don't believe many people think this way, or understand this. People are always taught that money buys happiness. Does it? I don't know. Even as a child, and now, I have always lived the medium middle class; with a few years as a divorced mom of three teenagers of barely keeping my head above water.
Thanks a lot! There should be more posts like this one! My wife and I are right now in a phase in our life where we are struggling to make a living. We are determined to make a living by working from our home and to spend as much time as possible together. It is not an easy endeavor in our country where traditinally every one needs to have a fixed job, the social security and so on. But we are trying hard to make this work anyway, because we've already found out that money is not all as you described with a very well chosen words.
Thanks again for the much needed encouragement.
Yes, journey before destination, means over goals. Money is still necessary, I think its importance decreases with the more you have of it. Someone who has no food on the table will find no meaning in this post. That, however, does not take away the deep meaning of what you are saying. I think it's ultimately about where you are in life.
Yes you nailed it down again. So we only need to change Steemit's welcome page which reads MONEY TALKS !
I believe steemit is still working because many poeple actually are here for the meaning, but they might not know.
You're absolutely right, at least in my opinion. I think I put too much emphasis on money as well. Because money is what pays the bills and keeps food on the table, it seems to be too much of the focus of life. "If I only had more money" then I wouldn't need to _____. Right? Except once the money comes, if you don't already have in place your plans, passions, and habits of using wisely using money, it can frustrate you.
I'm working on smelling the roses, or at least appreciating the moments. It sounds like you are too!
Such a pity we only recognize this when we come towards the end of our journey. Wen we are young we are too arrogant to understand!
I definitely see where you're coming from here. I always felt in the way that money can't buy happiness, but you definitely need some of it to at least be "stable" to enjoy the true happiness of life.
About what you wrote here I like the following :
..and then again and again repeats the loop :-)
Exactly i agreed with your opinion. Money can not purchase peace of mind.
I appreciate your thinking and your thoughts are praisable. fully agreed @dragosroua.
The journey will keep going one but do what makes you happy from inside that what matters in the end