Allow me to describe this house. On the exterior, it looks like a sprawling multi-level log cabin. It rests in a shallow valley just deep enough to obscure it from the road, at the end of a mile long driveway and on the edge of a huge lake. Stepping inside, you are immediately greeted by the giant tree trunks that shoot up like pillars into the high ceiling of the foyer. This is a common theme throughout the home, and everything feels like it was built around the trees. There were more rooms than I could count, and each one cost more than my house probably about three times over.
There was an indoor pool, for example that was designed to look like a lagoon in the middle of a cave. A waterslide was hidden in rock outcroppings made to look like natural cave formations on the far wall, and the pool itself had a natural, figure-8 sort of shape. I later learned that the pool designs had been done by someone who had designed the environments for theme rides at Disney Land.
Everything in the house was detailed down to the last millimeter, and it all very tastefully fit into the aesthetic theme while still managing to boast its extravagance. But despite all the luxury and feats of interior design, I noticed something was missing: It didn’t feel like a home. Yes, people lived here, but everything was so big and so meticulously cleaned it felt like I was standing in a hotel lobby or theme park or something.
Sure, the ultimate luxury home sounds nice on paper, but what do you lose in exchange for all that surface-level extravagance? Here were people who had accomplished the american dream, who had achieved what almost everyone dreams of doing, and they just seemed kind of bored with it all.
That’s when it dawned on me. Money does not equal happiness. Of course, money can help you pay the bills and put food on the table and keep Netflix on your TV, but once you have so much money that the numbers lose their meaning, what’s even the point of having it all? You can buy loads and loads of things to make you happy, but soon the novelty of it all will wear off and you will be back where you started.
What do you think, is being rich worth it, or does it actually not make a difference in the long run?
I think that having a sufficient amount of money is important rather than trying to acquire a large amount of wealth. As you said money doesn't buy happiness, so I would think that it's more important to focus on life than focusing on becoming rich.
ReplyDeleteI think that how much money you have and how happy or sad you are don't correlate very much. Being rich won't make a sad person happy, and being happy won't make a poor person rich. You can still be happy and rich, so why not be rich?
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