jebmo’s posthaven

Luxury makes us feel successful, that we are winning at the game of life, that we are not only surviving, but thriving. Like an opioid in our brains, luxury locks into our survival receptors. The irony is that purchasing luxury, and being dependent on it for our sense of self and wellbeing, leads to us depleting the very resources that we actually need for survival.

It turns out that having the discipline to live frugally, to invest rather than spend, to mend and make do, and to be able to live for longer and longer periods of time without having to work, are true measures of wealth. Deeply enjoying whatever it is you're experiencing right now is the ultimate wealth.

The people who are on the nine-to-five treadmill, working to pay for luxury cars to drive for two hours per day to and from work, are really on a luxury treadmill. These people are addicted to luxury.

Some people are very shallow

I took a long period of mid-life retirement. During that time, I have been getting a PhD, and starting some businesses. I remember one time in my early 30s being at a party when a very physically attractive woman walked up to me, introduced herself and then asked, "What do you do?" I responded, "I'm a student."

Before I knew it, she had turned around and walked away from me. She instantly stopped talking to me and disappeared into the crowd. I remember feeling really hurt. Thoughts of my worthless came up. Presumably, she didn't want to speak to me because I was a student, and perhaps she thought I didn't have any money. A few days later, after pondering what must have happened some more, I understood the irony that I was probably the richest person at the party. I also understood my luck that she didn't stick around.

I know many people with extremely high net worths. Many of these people spend their time in pajamas, or flip-flops, or shorts. You can't tell how wealthy someone is by what they're wearing. You also can't tell how wealthy someone is by how much money they have.

Everyone respects wealth

I can't think of specific examples of this one, but I do know that I've had a lot of experiences of people treating me very differently when they got a sense of how much money I had. Having money seems to telegraph that you are successful, in a way that's totally disconnected with how successful you are in other areas of your life.

I have also seen new-age kind of people talking with disdain about money, and claiming that "money doesn't make you happy," and "rich people are assholes," and various other statements that show disgust for money. Then, later, I have seen these very same people starting to make and accumulate money, and I have seen them consuming conspicuously and showing off.

Money is so powerful as a symbol of choice and freedom that it's impossible for it not to galvanize powerful responses in people, and to create strong reactions.

Most financial advisors know nothing

I went to some financial advisors at a stock brokerage to get some advice on how to manage my money. This pair of advisors, actually "stockbrokers," told me a lot about the marathons they ran in Hawaii before proceeding to advise me to buy a bunch of individual stocks. Over a period of months, they would call me, "We like Lucent Technologies!" and I would say, "Okay, buy $20,000 of that for me." and then they would bill me $1,000 brokerage commission. That's a 5% commission for "liking" something. I was a fool. I had an online brokerage account where I could have got the same stock for a $10 fee.

When I told them about my stock options, they said, "Never heard of that company! You need to get out of that!" I ended up cashing-in large chunks of the stock in my company to buy all these hot internet stocks that they liked. During my last meeting with them, they asked me if they could exercise and sell some more of my stock options in order to buy some of company X. I told them I couldn't because I was in a black-out period. They looked confused.

Later, I got an email telling me that a bunch of my stock options had been exercised and sold and that I was the proud owner of company X. I called them to ask what was happening. They said that I had told them to sell the stock. I said I hadn't. The guy on the phone told me that his partner had been there and witnessed it. I told them to undo the stock trades before I got jailed for insider trading, and I fired them.

That's when I realized that I had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in companies that I knew nothing about. Looking back, I feel consoled understanding that the stock brokers knew nothing about the stocks either. That's also when the dot-com bubble burst and that basket of stocks halved in price, while the stock for the company I worked at kept on climbing (it wasn't a dot com company).