Having a hard time getting over being not rich

[beginagain]

My values don't even gravitate towards money. I realize how foolish it is to chase money. Yet I feel very sad when I think about Mark Cuban just hopping in his private jet, gambling 10 million dollars away in Vegas, and then heading to New York to spend 10k on a sushi dinner without thinking twice.

I know I will never have that.

I have saved over a million dollars and I make over 60k per year in passive income (actually made 160k so far this year), but I worked for 8 years for that money. And I went to school for 4 years in order to get that job.

At that rate, I will never know what it is to be rich. I am an INFP on the Meyers-Briggs personality test. I guess we aren't supposed to make the best entrepreneurs, but I can't imagine myself doing anything else than running my own enterprise. Maybe I just like the thought of it, but maybe I don't have what it takes to make it happen.

Everyone is out for themselves nowadays. I have reached out to so many people. So many.

I have had a year to think my way out of this, but I keep going in circles. I think I should just shut up and get a job and try to be normal. I mean, I don't think I have the intestinal fortitude to do that, but I guess maybe I should.

I really see myself crashing and burning, becoming homeless or committing suicide. This world seems like a lie, and I will never get what I want. That is only for people who aren't me.

I am pretty sure all this is true and I won't pull out of it. I wish so bad it wasn't true. I really want to live a happy life. I just don't think I will. I don't think I will ever be rich, and it really bothers me.

And I know that none of the comments are going to get me out of my situation, but I post this in hopes that I am wrong and cynical. But I have seen it too many times where nothing changes, things just stay the same.

[DanBC]

If you were rich enough to have a jet to fly to Vegas you might just shift perception, and be jealous of the people building space craft or deep sea vessels or hyperloops.

There's always going to be people richer than you.

To me, $1m is a fantastic amount of money. If you want to give 0.1% of it away send me an email - it would be very very useful to me and my son.

There are almost certainly local groups who need volunteers. Have you considered helping them? Not financially, but rolling your sleeves up and getting involved. This would give you rewards that are not based in money, and help you shift your perceptions of wealth.

> I really see myself crashing and burning, becoming homeless or committing suicide.

This is very troubling. Please see a doctor. Please consider seeing a therapist. Thoughts of suicide are worrying signs of depression, which can be a fatal illness. Modern treatments are getting better, especially if you have the money to access medication and therapy. And early intervention helps.

I'm sorry you're having a lousy time. I hope things improve for you!

[jnorthrop]

> This is very troubling. Please see a doctor. Please consider seeing a therapist. Thoughts of suicide are worrying signs of depression, which can be a fatal illness. Modern treatments are getting better, especially if you have the money to access medication and therapy. And early intervention helps.

This is the appropriate response to this post and it is worth repeating in order to help it be viewed by the poster.

[mcintyre1994]

Surely this is entirely a perspective issue? Absolutely no disrespect or anything, but I think this is about more than just money, and perhaps you should try talking it over with somebody significantly more qualified.

I mean, just a little perspective, The average (median) US household income as of 2011 is $50,000. Inflation adjusted, it's never passed $60,000 1980-2011. [0]

You make more in passive income than most families make from actively working. Oh, and $160,000 puts you firmly in the top 10%, again as of 2011. Maybe you don't see yourself as rich, but you really are doing well.

If the average US worker works 45 years at $50,000, they can earn about $2.25million. You already have half of that over 8 years, in savings. You are miles ahead of the curve here. Most people will never see $1million in their bank account. If I have the equivalent of $1million 8 years after graduation, I imagine that would be a sign I was doing well - why isn't it? Oh, and your average of $125,000 saved per year would put you in the top 15% if it were your entire earnings.

Sorry, my point is, I don't think this is about money. I don't think you're greedy, it's something else. "crashing and burning, becoming homeless or committing suicide" would be the worst possible outcomes, and you can, and deserve to do better than that.

Please talk to somebody more qualified about this because statistically speaking you're doing incredibly so far.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...

[beginagain]

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sales/manhattan/

this page tells me otherwise. Never will I be able to afford something like this. I get that I'm well off. I'm GRATEFUL for that, whether or not it seems that way. It's just that I want more. A lot more. And there doesn't seem to be a way to do it. I see all these entrepreneurs living the lives of dreams, and here I sit, twiddling my thumbs, spinning my wheels. I feel like I'm about to go off the deep end.

[duiker101]

>I have saved over a million dollars and I make over 60k per year in passive income (actually made 160k so far this year)

In my eyes you are rich.

It's perspective.

[GotAnyMegadeth]

"I have saved over a million dollars and I make over 60k per year in passive income ... At that rate, I will never know what it is to be rich."

WHAT? I would consider that hideously rich, I've never met anyone with that much money before. A million dollars? Speechless.

[beginagain]

How. How do you not know anyone 'that rich'.. I am not rich. I feel like this is a major shortsight.

[grownseed]

Like many others here have already pointed out, the money you have is considerably more than most, me included. But that's beyond the point.

Thinking this is the sort of thing that'll make you happy, is in my opinion exactly why you are not so. From my view, which took me time and effort to understand and appreciate, you cannot become happy by longing for things, but by being satisfied with the things you already have, be them material or not, and I'm sure you've got more than you think. This might sound cliche, but I truly believe happiness comes from within.

In fact, out of personal experience, I can tell you I've never been as happy as I am now, and I'm pretty damn happy. I got rid of most of my things and worked hard at not being attached to things in general. I'm lucky in that I don't have any debts, nor do I have any savings.

I try to value the little, simple things. Things that don't have a price tag or can't be quantified, things I don't feel like are a source of comparison or competition, things that I can talk about with other people that engender simple wonder and excitement, not loathing and envy.

Think good conversation, a nice piece of music, the smiles of the people you care about, the pride your mum has when she can make you your favorite dish once in a while, etc. None of these things essentially cost money, they simply cost a human investment, time and empathy.

You're probably right in saying that none of the comments here will get you out of your situation. Ultimately, the only person who can do that is yourself. Thinking the world is your problem is assuming the world should care about you more than you care about it or yourself. Love yourself and who you can be, not the digits on your bank receipt, your social standing, the brand of your car, the caviar you could have on your plate or any of that subjective crap.

Lengthy, soggy life lesson over :)

[beginagain]

>Thinking the world is your problem is assuming the world should care about you more than you care about it or yourself.

no they shouldn't. The world does not give a flying fuck about me. It only cares what I give to them. So why don't I? Why am I such a worthless piece of shit. I am a worthless piece of shit. I am a worthless piece of shit.

I am a piece of shit.

[horofx]

Actually you have a pretty good amount of money for your age, if you keep going like this I'm sure you will get what you want in maybe 20 years.

But seriously. Money is shit. What EVERYONE is striving for is experience. You want to feel the experience of boarding that private jet, gamble 10mi or something.

The experience you are wanting to have is very empty and there's way better stuff to do out there. Learn to draw, paint, do something you are proud of. Be the CEO of a big company. Help homeless people. The experience is what matters, go after it.

[beginagain]

I want to help who I empathize with. But if I do not love myself, how am I supposed to love others?

I cannot help poor people, I do not empathize with them. I can help broken people, but how am I to help them when I cannot help myself?

[epo]

You're either trolling or you have a mental health problem (depression perhaps?).

[beginagain]

I don't see how it is so mentally insane to want more out of life. I think people who think 1 million is the same as having 100 million are delusional, as it is nothing of the sort. Sure, I could buy a bunch of shit with 1mm, but then what? If I had a job right now that I enjoyed, BELIEVE me, I wouldn't be posting. But I am unemployed, I left my old work, and I won't go back to it. So I have to find something new.

[keiferski]

Obviously everyone has already covered the "money won't make you happy" angle. So I'm going to take a different route on this comment, just for the sake of it.

Right now you're rich. Your objective is to become super rich. Ok, fine. Make a plan to get there and execute it.

Luckily, you're in a perfect position to turn your million into a hundred million, as you've got a runway of at least 10 years, potentially more if you already have a reliable passive income stream and don't need to dip into your principal. This lets you try out multiple ideas with no immediate need to monetize them. Apply to YC / go to San Francisco, build a team of top engineers, and try to build the next Facebook/Instagram/Twitter. You've obviously got basic needs covered, so there's no reason not to go for the big win. Billionaires are usually made from the big acquisition / IPO, not the little guy chugging along (in tech at least).

[gexla]

It seems to me like you don't want to be rich so much as you don't want to worry about running out of money. I imagine a lot of people with a decent amount of money feel that way.

Personally, I kind of like the hustle and fight at the bottom, but it can get tiring.

Money doesn't buy happiness. It only buys you time and the raw materials to be happy. Again, I think your issue might be the thought of losing what you have and that's eating you up. You still have to worry about retirement. You still have to watch your budget. You don't want to have to worry about these things.

Obviously if you want to hit 100 million you have to scale big. Since you are afraid of losing money, you would probably need to go a similar route as someone with little to no money. You couldn't hire a bunch of people and you couldn't get into something capital intensive without investors. Going web / app is one way to go. You could hit the scale with little investment. Rather than hiring employees, you would probably need to get someone on board with you to handle the software side of things.

You could do a sort of arbitrage. If you want to feel rich, come to the Philippines! On 160K per year (or even 60K) you could do pretty much what you want. If you come up with an idea, you could hire developers for $800 / month. Minimum wage in much of the country is around $6 / pay and a lot of companies find loopholes to hire people for less than that.

Maybe go to the mecca of web / apps (San Francisco) and get out, meet people and strike up some conversations. Get a notebook and write down ideas or even just general thoughts. Get that brain working. Creativity is a muscle, it needs exercise before it starts working. Find like minded people. Float the idea of grabbing a sweet party pad in a cheap place like the Philippines or Thailand. Get a maid or two to keep the place clean and cook (or to run to pick up food for you from local restaurants.) Then just build, build, go out on the town and then come back and build some more. You pay for everything (you could probably swing this on just your passive income) and your team gets some sort of stake (maybe even co-founders.) If you need help, hire local developers for cheap. When you have an MVP (and maybe even customers and a solid plan rolling) then come back to SF and pitch to everyone you can. Who knows, maybe you could find some investors and use that money to keep going rather than your own. If it totally doesn't work, go back and try again.

Maybe this is naive or not realistic, but sounds like a good plan to me. ;)

[beginagain]

are you currently stationed in thailand?

[sekm]

Hmmm. Given your financial situation I don't think your problem really has anything to do with 'not being rich'. It just sounds like you're depressed about something.

Why not consider donating a portion to a charity? If anything it may absolve yourself of some responsibility regarding your cynical outlook? Be the change you seek :)

[a3n]

As we've all read here, past a certain level of security more money doesn't make you happier. You have more than enough money and savings for what passes as security in the US. My guess is that you're sad or depressed about one thing, but looking at the rich issue instead of whatever it is that's troubling you.

Fundamentally, as you can see from other comments, you don't seem to have an obvious reason for depression just from what you wrote, in fact you look like you have a pretty good situation. Yet you feel like you do, so there's likely something else going on.

You should make contact with a counselor or similar, and do some exploration as to what might be bothering you. Many times we don't know what's bothering us, we just feel bad. The result of counseling could be identification of some issue and how to address it, and additionally some idea of things you can do to make yourself feel good, independent of any issues.

Mental health is not just fixing what's broke. Promoting what's good is just as important.

You sound mentally unhealthy. You wouldn't hesitate to set a broken arm and put it in a cast. Go talk to a professional or two, and get yourself healthy.

EDIT: This should have been a reply to the OP. Weird that I put it here. Recalibrating brain ...

[beginagain]

It really has everything to do with not being rich. A million dollars is not rich. 100 million is.

When you have a million, you make passive income of 60-70k per year. When you have 100 million, you make passive income of 7 million per year (but probably much more), which gives you almost 600k per month. You can do anything and you really don't care about saving money at this point, so you can spend all of it. As opposed to 5k per month, and you are living off 3k per month, trying desperately to save money to re-invest every year.

Donating my money would just make me panic more. The problem is that I have nothing except money. I need to start on something, but I don't know what.

[fluxon]

IMHO you have a comfortable cushion, and some time to make careful, thoughtful decisions. Some professional financial planning could set you up to relieve yourself of some worries. Having done phase 1 (acquiring retirement money), you can take some time and assess what you love in life, or to explore what that means. Phase 2 might be family, or it might be personal growth, or it might be an adventure, or investing, or maybe as simple as a soul-searing eye-widening scary-ass meeting with either Paul Graham or Mark Cuban. Something to consider. Short term, though, the sincere, hopeful recommendations by others here that you look into discreet professional counseling to break your logjam and apparent depression, and to help you make your way from phase 1 to whatever your next phase is, are not wrong. You might need the therapy after meeting with Graham or Cuban. Best wishes for your breakthrough.

[beginagain]

I'm not scared of meeting Cuban. I am scared of meeting Graham.

Cuban is not that smart in my eyes, Graham is really smart, but I'm not sure Graham realizes how smart he is.

How arrogant is that?

[atrilumen]

You suck. Can I borrow $700 to pay a PR firm to promote my game?

I'm hoping to get my kids off of welfare someday.

[sharemywin]

what's your game?

[davman]

Heh, I long for the day I have 60k in regular income, let alone passive. $1m in savings is the sort of thing I dream about.

If this is your situation and you are still not happy, I would suggest speaking to a professional about what else in your life might be lacking.

[taber1]

It seems to me that you've never been truly poor, which resulted in extremely unbalanced perspective about money, life and happiness.

[beginagain]

Yup. this is part of it for sure. So what should I do? Fucking shoot myself in the head? I guess most people would prefer me dead. Maybe I should.

[somberi]

Dalai Lama: "Someone asked me if I like counseling the rich or the poor, more. The rich. Because they come with the awareness that wealth does not solve problems".

[avifreedman]

What makes you happy?

When I was in college if someone had offered to pay me $100k inflation adjusted for life to play with computers, coding, and networking, I would probably have signed in blood - even having has some success at consulting and with entrepreneur role models in my family.

So when I get frustrated at people or with circumstances, I find it helpful to remember enjoying reading books, playing with technology, teaching people and getting positive feedback, being part of productive teams, and the other firsts which were all new, novel, impressive, and profound at the time and now I just assume are the state of my universe.

Yes, there's a lot I don't enjoy about working at big companies, and ditto for smaller companies where you have to do more of things you don't like. But have less BS of others' making. But it's still awesome to be paid to do fundamentally fun stuff!

So anyway, just a thought - maybe try to find the things that make you happy and do them and embrace them and maybe suffer to work in a constraining day job which is still stuff you sort of enjoy, and tinker as a hobbyist to have your own space for pure fun? And who knows, companies are still being born that way...

[beginagain]

Well then why don't we work together, motherfucker? btw, I am serious, and would join you, just give me the word.

[stephenbez]

The book "Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life" by John Bogle (http://www.amazon.com/Enough-True-Measures-Money-Business/dp...) might be good for you. I read it years ago. He talks about "how destructive an obsession with financial success can be".

Maybe you could change your focus outwards. For 30 days, instead of focusing on how you could amass more money, you could focus on what you could do to help the most people. You would likely feel less depressed after that.

This reminds me of a poem mentioned in the book:

True story, Word of Honor: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22′ has earned in its entire history?” And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.” And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?” And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” Not bad! Rest in peace!

[christianlo]

I honestly think you need friends. Or better friends. You have lost perspective a little bit but that is ok. You want change and do things differently and that is great. Just try to keep an open mind for new people in your life because I will tell you that I know a lot of people that is more fun to spend time with than random people at a casino. Find such people and you will feel like the richest person in the world.

[beginagain]

Why can't we be friends?

And you're right. I met this one girl here. She is the apple of my eye. to say it gayly. But it makes all the difference. By now you probably wish for me to die, but I beg you to reach out. I am a good friend.

[mcv]

I know I shouldn't joke about this, but I'm currently imagining the headline: "Millionaire kills himself over not being rich enough."

[beginagain]

well i laughed out loud at this. And yes, I see how much of a douchekongercunt I am. I am a fucking cunt. Fine.

But it doesn't change the fact that i am fucked right now and I need some help.

[Spoom]

God, this board is strange sometimes. The very idea of having a million dollars and simultaneously complaining about not being rich enough is bizarre to me. But then, to the OP, I'm probably a crazy person (or worse, below some threshold of being a worthwhile opinion) because my bank accounts' savings are only measured in thousands.

Beyond that, if you're still willing to listen to the opinion of a thousandaire, you should talk to a psychologist. You have set yourself some unrealistic goals, and they are apparently torturing you. I think, personally, that you need more socialization outside of a work situation. The world isn't a lie, but you're cutting yourself off from a huge part of it. Go do a bunch of things that involve other people as much as possible, and money as little as possible.

But hey, bonus points for me: There's a millionaire out there with my Meyers-Briggs type.

[beginagain]

OK, I am going to do this then. I am already seeing a shrink and a life coach. But I am going to start getting out there. Maybe that will do it. All I need is an idea, and I'm going to rape it. I'm absolutely insanely famished and I am going to go full cutthroat balls to the wall rabid insane when I get something going.

[jagawhowho]

1 mil is not rich in 2013. That won't even buy a mansion.