yea that’s social media… we all end up looking at those ppl with awesome jobs (without looking at the hundreds with blah, whatever jobs), people post the awesome vacations they went on, great food they ate, clubs they went to.
It’s like looking at the world as 1 huge awesome success in the most positive angle.
^ What I’ve found objectively looking at social media is that the majority of people with these lavish lifestyle profiles are probably flat broke or way in over their heads. Most of the successful people I know don’t feel the need to outwardly show off their wealth.
Possibly. But I also feel that I am not doing my best. If I were on track to become, let’s say, a director, I would not care if one of my peers was a VP. It doesn’t bother me that they go on to great success; it’s that I feel as if I am not ‘fulfiling’ something (I don’t want to use the word potential because potential is not reality).
People who lived lavishly when they were younger regret not saving more money and being more responsible. People who saved money and lived below their means wished they were more carefree. Human nature? What if?
Not my experience. Some people are just really wealthy and think it is normal to buy a plane or go yachting. Doesn’t really make me jealous because I just figure they’ll they’ll drown or die in a plane crash.
I think it just depends. you have wealthy ppl that couldn’t care less if the world knew or not. And you have broke ppl that desperately want to appear showy and rich.
There was an article in the Economist from a couple of weeks ago, in which social scientists tried to explain why changes in wealth or inequality makes people unhappy. They went to some poor place in Africa and randomly gave some people $150. This is a lot of money for people who live there - like months of income. They did happiness surveys before and after the experiment.
Anyway, the study found that the people who received money were only marginally happier than before, but the people who did not receive money were significantly less happy. In other words, the existence of someone who is better off than you makes you feel like crap.
This might help explain some societal objection towards affluent people. It might also explain the social media effect as explained above.
I tried to search for the article, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe someone here read this as well.
A lot of this can change in your 40s. In your 40s, you often get the first glimpse of proof that you are not immortal. Some things you put off in order to invest in yourself for a better future worked… a lot didn’t. You start to wonder if it’s worth depriving yourself in the present for imagined future outcomes that may well not materialize.
Suddenly the calculus starts to change, and you realize that if you are going to enjoy your life before you’re dead, you’d better start doing it. It’s true that if you save more, you may yet have more in retirement, but is an extra two or three years in your 70s or 80s really worth depriving yourself for many years when you are healthy enough to enjoy being alive?
It’s still a balancing act, since it’s not good to be completely irresponsible. And yet, given that medical costs go up exponentially at the end of life, and inflation may do the same if you’re on a fixed income. Maybe it just makes sense to check out a few years early if it means that you truly enjoyed being alive when you were able.
Right, but the people who couldn’t care less also don’t think twice about, for example, posting a picture of their charity event on their yacht. It’s just a normal, obvious thing to do.
I am struggling to do the whole family and a house thing but managing to make it work. I have a small but not extravegant 401k that’s better than most I guess but I spent very wastefully in my 20’s. From where I am now, I would never go back and change any of that. I partied hard and traveled ALOT when I was in my 20’s and it makes what I’m doing now much more pallateable knowing that I lived adventurously when the opportunity was available to me. Some people just don’t have a desire to do a lot of traveling and have a lot of adventures and for them the calculous may be different. At the same time, the group saying they’ll do it in retirement make me laugh. 1) No one can gauruntee that, so in some ways they’re the ones being risky and 2) traveling at 65 is just not the same and far inferior to traveling at 23 and being a part of the night life and social scene. It just isn’t and it never will be. People trying to say that are either boring or fooling themselves. I’ll take being 23 and living in a hostel with a group of adventurers over the penthouse suite at age 70 anyday.
what if the penthouse suite had 23 yo females?
It is better to do some of both. I waited to settle down and travelled a bit, but I also worked on my career and still travel a bunch with my wife. People should really run their cash flow and build a plan to retire/semi-retire at a reasonable age. Personally, I’d like to be out of the working full time by about 50 and I know what I need to do to get there assuming no career growth and modest investment gains.
The problem people fall into is lifestyle creep. Buying bigger houses without realizing that the purchase means they’ll have to work another five or ten years. Prioritizatin is key. I’m more than happy to spend money on proper education or travel and don’t really care about driving a beater.
I think the reason people find themselves unhappy in mid adulthood is that they realize they have used the wrong variables in their equation for happiness… or at least gave those variable the wrong weighting!
At that point you hopefully still have the flexibility to rebalance the function given the responsibilites and baggage you have picked up with the beta version of the equation. Once that adjustment is done, you then emerge on the prime of your life.
I think your 40s and 50s can probably be the best years of your life in terms of “happiness” and productivity. I’m really looking forward to it myself.
ALSO, I wanted to say, I don’t think “happiness” is the point. You can’t be happy all the time and if you don’t develop an aquired taste that can find enrichment in the whole spectrum of emotion, then you are just going to be frustrated. I should bump the thread where ACE brought up the Cicero latin phrase
“There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain”
when you feel that way about all emotions (including happiness), I think you can’t possibly live a better life.
Not appealing to me at all. You’d still be 65 and pathetic at best or delusional at worst. There’s something to be said for sparking a chemistry with a girl at a bar overseas whom you’ve never met and communicating despite a major language barrier, ditching her friends running around the city till the sun comes up. You can lose your retirement, but that’s some shit only alzheimers can take from you.
geez. those 23 yo females are your daughters. sicky!
I don’t follow?
Unless you’re insinuating that the 23 year old girls would be my daughters. In which case, 1) I didn’t have twins, 2) I will not have more than one daughter, my gf and I do it standing up now, so all sons from here on out 3) my daughter would be 35 by then 4) I’m allowed to say I like 23 year olds since my gf just turned 23.
Now that brings back some nice memories for me already. Good ones.
It is amazing what you learn when you talk to people at the end of life. One of the most common laments is this.
80 year old man: “I should have kissed that girl, but I was afraid.”
80 year old woman: “I should have f*d that boy, but I was afraid.”
If you’re feeling attracted, don’t be afraid to say so. People spend so much time trying to hone their “game,” when simple honesty, stated frankly and without pressure, takes you so far. Though it’s true that you need to have enough composure not to sound desperate or creepy - that’s where the trick lies.
Yeah, for me simple honesty stated frankly would probably get me slapped.
Well, there’s honesty, and there’s also tact.
So, I could say “I’d like to have dinner with you” which is true because I am hungry. But, I should not say “I’d like to lick your neck” which is also true but perhaps less socially acceptable. Got it, I’ll keep that in mind.