This is a misleading article that, with its mundane look at the world, tries to provide a "gotcha" that does not seem to exist except in the minds of someone who tries to find "gotchas" everywhere, as the author does.

Do you want a new and better car? Actually, you don't want a Ferrari, you want dopamine. Do you feel attracted to someone younger, better looking, funnier, more interesting than your current partner? This is a trap. Well, I would love to have a Ferrari and I would love to be in the company of the best partner I can find. Call me a dopamine addict if you want.

Although my experience is not necessarily generalizable, it may offer the perspective of someone who, through working in the tech industry, has gone from having little to having more. Having better things makes life more interesting, bigger, and reduces the likelihood of having annoying problems. On average, mind you, and that is how we should look at people's behavior (we should also look at variance, but that would require a longer commentary).

We have all experienced the Gatsby syndrome, either personally or through other people. Having everything we want except one thing we obsessively desire, perhaps a woman or a man, a full head of hair, a few inches, the genuine appreciation of others, fewer years on our shoulders. It is the limiting factor of a chemical reaction. Does this make the possession of things irrelevant? No, it just tells us that they are bottlenecks, limiting factors, that can keep us from enjoying the material or the easy. But if you get rid of the obsession, you will find, as I did, that a 5-star hotel is better than a 2-star hotel, natural fabrics better than polyester, first class better than knees touching ears in economy, a Ferrari better than a 25-year-old Ford. Just lived experience.

A bunch of other rich people don’t know how to enjoy their stuff but you don’t have to fall in that trap.

There is a “mindfulness” angle. Instead of taking it always for granted, pay attention and make time enjoy your stuff.

Thoigh if you keep realizing the things you have worked hard for don’t end up making you happy, that might be hopeless.

I cannot relate to joy of struggle for owning things. Maybe the times have changed and often more expensive things just aren't better (although nicer things still are usually more expensive) but while I feel a lot of pleasure from wearing proper clothes, using well-made tech, and living in a stylishly designed apartment, looking for them is almost always a chore I happily outsource to bloggers, HN (thank you!), or my girlfriend. With the one exception of ordering custom tailored clothes which feels like research.

This article reads like something from a conversation you might have with an overconfident plumber who had just read an article in "Popular Science". Or someone who lives by IFL Science. Or TED Talks.

Maybe the author should read some old philosophy.

Another way to interpret what's going on is that people often look for happiness in all the wrong places, or confuse pleasure with happiness. In this case, the author is describing people who believe acquisition leads to happiness. He is describing the thrill of the hunt, that anticipation of a reward that isn't there, followed by disappointment because some nebulous misplaced expectation isn't met.

Happiness begins with virtue.

I have found that instead of wanting things I don't own, wanting to see created things I haven't created yet very liberating.

Since it makes my goals very personal, I can't compare myself on an objective metric with other people and as a result feel less frustrated about not earning more.

> A few years after leaving office, Richard Nixon mentioned that the richest people in the world are some of the unhappiest, because they can afford to never struggle.

Except for those who choose a cause. Bill Gates comes to mind.

> You feel that, gee, isn’t it just great to have enough money to afford to live in a very nice house, to be able to play golf, to have nice parties, to wear good clothes, to travel if you want to?

If that's the vacuous extent of your life, the problem doesn't lie with the money.

> Something you can easily afford brings less joy than something you must save and struggle for. “The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys,” Dawson wrote.

Except that it's not true. I was easily able to afford the air fryer that I bought two years ago. Every single time I use it, I'm amazed at how easy it makes preparing certain meals, and I am thankful to the friend who recommended it. Every single thing I buy is carefully thought out (sometimes over months) to improve a specific part of my life. And every single thing I own is valued because it has a specific purpose. Dawson may have thought he'd stumbled upon some great wisdom, but all he was actually doing was looking in a mirror.

> Your brain doesn’t want stuff. It doesn’t even want new stuff. It wants to engage in the process and anticipation of getting new stuff.

Uhh wuuuuut? That's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. What's the point in getting "stuff" over and over? You're not going to have any use for it.

> When you get a $10,000 car you dream of the 20,000 car.

Uhh no. I have a $5000 car and have absolutely no desire to buy another one until this one becomes too expensive to fix. I could buy a $50,000 car tomorrow, but what would be the point?

All I'm seeing in this article are confessions of a greedy person.

Spend money on experiences, not things: shows, concerts, meals, travel. Rarely if ever have I regretted spending money on one, and nobody can take them away from you later.

Why do VCs write these kinds of generic, life advice columns?

The author clearly has no experience of poverty, when you are poor, really poor, you have nothing to eat, you must go out to try to find something to eat, and finding the thing to eat is not assured, you'll know that owning things is the last thing on your mind, no matter what you come to be in life later, you'll live in constant fear of going back to poverty.

Rich people getting bored and unhappy is 200% on them and them only. I know of no less than 7 separate things I'd lose myself into -- all related to inventing stuff -- that I actually would be afraid if I'll be giving my wife enough attention. That's how active I would be if I didn't have to worry about a job and a salary.

I know other people like myself as well, some more obsessed and downright hyperactive even.

People lose themselves in material items and status. I want to buy stuff so I waste less time on things I don't enjoy -- washing machine is the perfect example. I want computers because I can program my ideas. I want an electronic workshop corner because I want to get into that and experiment. I want an air fryer because I have high cholesterol and want to experiment with healthier cooking. Many other good and valid examples exist.

Don't lose yourself in material items. Status does not exist. Decouple your money-making scheme from other people perceiving you as having "status". Important thing is for the number in the bank to keep increasing, everything else is a distraction. As long as you're not harming people, kidnapping kids or raping anyone then by all means, go crazy getting rich by doing legal stuff.

My observation from the 8 rich people I knew in my life is: they got lucky, they succeeded too quickly, they have ZERO direction in life, they have no clue what to do with their free time. They got miserable not even 2 years into it.

To me they are weak and uninteresting people whose only impressive trait is that ONCE in their lifetime they managed to combine two and two together and called somebody at the right time (and these opportunities were more often than not created for them; they didn't initiate them).

But of course, "pull the ladder after yourself" and all, we know it. They are weak and uninteresting but they don't want competition and they have the tools in their hands to ensure that's the case.

It is how it is apparently. I'll fight to become rich as much as my personal limitations allow me and I am likely to fail but at least I won't ever complain about "having too much" or "the moment you have it it's no longer wanted".

Meh. Get some imagination!

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Oh, and that article sounds like paid propaganda: "you actually don't want what you think you want, be happy with what you have". Oh yeah? Well I'll be happy if I work 20h a month for the same money as now. And healthier. I can't. Then bugger off because your article does not help with anything.

I thought about this exact thing after the only time in my life so far I was in a position to get a brand new car. The research up to it was a lot more fun than actually having it.

I've run with this since, perhaps a little more than is healthy. Want something new: research aggressively but actually back out of ever buying. Our car (not the new one, that was a different country years ago) is getting to the point of needing more work than it's value, so I've been looking at new ones, taking test drives etc. But we won't buy any of those, we'll buy something used and quite old.

It might sound ok, I've got it solved and get that dopamine hit without consequence, but it's a huge waste of my time and it affects pretty much every purchase decision.

https://reddit.com/r/fatfire

I just don't see the car angle. It's an example people use but I don't see it. Sometimes I wish our car was a bit bigger because it would make our lives easier. Now I'm wealthy enough to buy a car from new, I do. But that's primarily for the hastle factor not the status.

Invest money, take the satisfaction of investing in others and seeing them grow it, and reward people who invest their time to produce the things that really do take time, but don't confuse the symbols and their artifacts with the real.

My hack around this was to recognize the only things that were valuable cost time. Fast way to do that was by recognizing the difference between the symbol or representation of something, and its real effect. As a symbol, money makes it it really easy to acquire other symbols, but that's all they are. Instead, get good at something, and even use some money to make opportunity (buy the time, your own or someone elses) to do it, but the more money you spend on them the less satisfying they are. An example is buying an expensive instrument to take beginner lessons, where learning on one can be so unsatisfying and humiliating relative to its symbolic value as to discourage you from pursuing it. The basic absurdity of culture is the belief that if you consume enough symbols of desire you eventually become one - and also perhaps that it is for the lack of those symbols that you are not normal or desirable. Symbols certainly help us negotiate the culture around us, but they are not the substrate or the real.

A quant once told me that the ideal portfolio lets you both eat well and sleep well, but they come at a cost to each other, so good luck with managing, i.e. extracting value from - money. It's not a problem I have, or one that I particularly envy because I mainly value time, and index on sleeping well over eating well.

I think people need to seek what is fulfilling for them, not what just necessarily makes them happy .

step one: think for yourself

step two: fail at step one

step three: devote your life to step one