Not Caring Enough About Money?
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I feel anger when I hear people saying their reason to do things was because of money. Yet, I feel fear knowing that one day it will make all the difference. My parents are immigrants who run liquor stores. My dad unfortunately is addicted to his own product; despite what it looks like to others, money is still an issue. Looking back (19m), I realize I have an unhealthy relationship with money.
What am I not understanding?
Thanks!
The author reflects on their complex relationship with money, having previously prioritized impact over financial gain, and seeks advice on understanding their feelings; the discussion centers around the interplay between money, impact, and personal values.
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Your parent is an unfortunate case. I know this personally, as I was an alcoholic for many years, and I only quit relatively recently. [1] But for every alcoholic like myself there are probably a hundred people who find alcohol to truly be an enjoyable addition to their lives, well worth the downsides.
I would say don't overgeneralize from your parent's experiences. It is quite possible they may have ended up in a bad way even if they didn't run a liquor store. The true lesson the is to be cautious around alcohol yourself, as it unfortunately appears to have a strong genetic component, but do continue moving towards greater money/impact - that's almost always a life improving stance.
[1]: https://andrew-quinn.me/1000-days-without-drinking/
Money is more complicated in that it is non-linear. 0 to 100k is more effectful on your life than 1m to 1.1m.
That's an enormous impact even if all you did with the laptop immediately after purchasing it was throw it in a volcano. It's not wrong to realize that money is subject to diminishing returns like everything else, but it misses the most important thing about it, and that exists outside of you.
So the impact that the adoption of fungible value by human society. As you alluded to: unspeakably big and arguably good overall (lets see the next 200 years before we judge but lets say massively positive. We got vaccines and space travel.)
Obviously it is not all attributable to money. It is the inventions from the wheel to the sexstant, the schools, socialism, capitalism, invention of writing, religion, even war etc. etc.
On the other hand, "Impact is money and money is Impact". is not true.
A teacher gets a fixed wage. They can be a great teacher and inspire the kids to do great things, or they could make the kids feel insecure for life. Same dollar wage both ways.
It's a "tool", currency for exchange, but also a store of value, a unit of accounting, etc. etc.
A few hundred dollar notes in your wallet is a tool you can use to buy food and pay rent for a while. A company worth a few million is a measure of the impact, value to customers, net present value of future income/cashflows, etc.
Don't aim to be rich, but try to have enough.
Money doesn't ultimately make you happy but it sure contributes to your happiness along the way.
This might lead some to believe that the poor person cares greatly about the money, while the rich person probably couldn't care less. But this is often not the case. One of the reasons why some people are wealthy and others not, is how much attention they pay to small details. Poor people can be very frivolous with money, while rich people can be very frugal. The opposite can also be true, but how you handle money is not dependent on how much of it you have.
I don't think there's enough overlap between the two populations to say that X and a certain way because of Y.
Same with your money as participant in the economy. Maintaining a healthy flow and preparing for the future is a good idea. But remember that fundamentally money is supposed to be a measure of value, not value itself (the tragedy of our society is confusing the map with the territory).
Continue focusing on impact and the money will follow. At the same time you still want to have a healthy balance and stable trajectory on the day-to-day and month-to-month without that turning into minmaxing or letting it direct your life-choices to an unhealthy degree. You'll probably want some form of income - not necessarily in the 1%.
You can also work a normal job to make reliable money to support yourself, and allocate some of your earnings to help others and make an impact… or even just your time. This can help bring some more purpose to your work, regardless of what it is.
If you have enough money and you can stop worrying about it, that seems like a healthy relationship with money. When you don't have much, it's a good thing to focus on, but prioritizing other things is great, if you can.
If it flows too fast, it's bad. If it's too slow, it's even worse. Central banks control the flow to make sure it's not too fast or too slow. Stuff like AI is like caffeine, meth, a stimulant. You risk problems with resources moving too fast, even if they moved to the right areas.
If you needed more blood, you'd work out. You'd improve muscle efficiency or lung effectiveness.
If you needed more money, you can't really chase the money, you'd chase productivity or cut costs.
Some people might say the analogy doesn't work because you can just hoard money. But it has to move. To quote Finite and Infinite Games, property must be seen as compensation. And property must be seen to be consumed - wealth is performance. If someone with wealth does not show that they are worthy of it, it will be taken from them by force e.g. taxes. The thief does not take someone else's property, he takes what he believes is rightfully his.