Better to Have Been Rich and Lost It, or Never Been Rich at All?
mod (Andy) note: "Blast from the past - Best of Eddie" - This one is originally from November 2010. If there's an old post from Eddie you'd like to see up again shoot me a message.
When I was in my teens and early 20's, all I could think about was being rich. I didn't care what I had to do to make the money, I just knew that I wanted to be rich. Not just wealthy, either. I wanted the private jets, the boats, the mansions, the proverbial "fuck you" money. What I didn't spend any time thinking about was what would happen if I made that kind of money and then lost it.
I was reminded of this when I read the story of the Martin family of Paso Robles, California. This is the story of a husband and wife with three kids who made $10 million after taxes from the sale of his father's company in 1998. Today all the money is gone, along with their sprawling estate, his Aston Martin, and her horses - one of which cost $173,000. He went from jet-setting and dinners at the "21" club to teaching at a community college in Kansas in just over 10 years. And it got me thinking about which was worse: to be rich and lose everything, or to have never been rich and not know what you're missing?
I never ended up making "fuck you" money, but I did pretty well for myself early on. For a lower middle-class mailman's kid, I threw up some pretty respectable numbers and quickly got used to the good life. When money is an issue for you your whole life and then suddenly it isn't really, you can either react responsibly and act like you've been in the end zone before, or you can act like a jackass and get flagged for excessive celebration in the Super Bowl of life.
You can probably guess which route I took. I'm still pulling the occasional yellow flag out of my ass from those days.
The money only amplified an already pretty ugly aspect of my personality and, through a series of self-destructive decisions and actions, I lost everything and basically had to spend a year of my life on the run in Mexico and the Far East. The details are unimportant at this point, but what is important is how brutal it was to have had a little dough and then lost it.
The fortunate thing for me was that this happened early in life, and I was able to recover from it. Not only was I able to bounce back, I made even more money the next time. And then I lost that, too. As long as you keep learning from your mistakes, making the money back gets easier each time.
But I'm forced to wonder what life would have been like if I had taken my dad's advice and become a vehicle maintenance officer for the Post Office. Would pulling down $40,000 a year (or whatever they make, I have no idea), loading up the station wagon for a vacation to Disneyland once a year, and living in a 1,300 sq ft 3-bedroom place in the burbs have been preferable to the wealth roller coaster I've ridden for most of my adult life?
I think not. We only go through life once, and I think experiences are the only real currency in this existence. Trying to keep things stable and steady kinda defeats the purpose in my view. Being rich teaches you that money can't buy everything (and that's a lesson you have to learn for yourself to ever really believe it) and being poor teaches you to be resourceful in ways only those who've been there can appreciate. There is great value in both experiences, but I'll grant you that being rich is better than being poor.
What do you think? What do you suppose the Martins think? It has to be especially difficult for their kids to have had everything and then lost it and have to move to where the "poor" people live.
Is it better to have been rich and lost it, or to have never been rich at all?






Comments
Better to never have been
Better to never have been rich at all. Not even a close decision. On the human utility curves losses always hurt significantly more than gains. Also there's one thing desiring a life you never had. Remembering a life you had and lost is so much worse.
We're on the same wavelength
We're on the same wavelength bro, this is exactly what I was going to write about today. SB4U.
Instead of saying what's better and what's worse, I will say that it's great that Mr. Martin went and got himself a job, no welfare, no unemployment bennies, no crying to the local news...this is life, very often we do what we can, not what we want. I know the popular saying goes the other way, but this story is a great reminder of how it is when you leave fantasy land. Word to the wise...
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As of right now, have to
As of right now, have to agree with tireds.
I'm only a college kid right now (like a lot of this board), so I've never really experienced anything remotely related to the good life, being from a very middle class background.
I can definitely see it as remembering some great moments in the past, but for some weird reason, it just seems as though when it comes to money, it just seems strange to remember it like it was something great.
I think part of the fun of not being rich is how everything seems more extravagant when you do decide to drop a little coin for it.
No one ever found happiness
No one ever found happiness through money. Wealth is not measured by the amount of things one can afford, but the amount of things one can afford to give up. Why live a life in pursuit of monetary gains and material possessions, for that is the life that literally billions of people have lived previously. People do no dare to be different, to take the road less travelled, and will one day realize that they gave up the best years of their life, years they will never get back, in pursuit of something they cannot even show for. A life of wealth is truly meaningless and leaves one still hungry and thirsty. Those that pursue nothing but money, will slowly become morally corrupt, and lose any sense of independence and original thought. They are so busy with keeping up with the Jonses to buy an entry level BMW or take 3-5 vacations a year, that they are slaves to work because they have to support their mortgage, car payments, extravagent lifestyle. People are too busy adapting to the person society has made the to be, than living to be the person they were born to be.
Henry David Thoreau said it best " Luxury items are not only not indespensisble, but a positive hindrance to the elevation of mankind"
Great post, Eddie! It almost
Great post, Eddie! It almost reads like a male Carrie Bradshaw (because clearly, that's what you were going for...). I especially like your posts relating to personal life experiences.
This is one of the best and
This is one of the best and most thought provoking posts I have read to date on this site.... bravo.
tireds wrote: Better to never
Better to never have been rich at all. Not even a close decision. On the human utility curves losses always hurt significantly more than gains. Also there's one thing desiring a life you never had. Remembering a life you had and lost is so much worse.
Agreed. Once you get used to that lifestyle, to go back is not the same.
My two cents says it's better
My two cents says it's better to be rich and lose it. The reason being, if you actually earned the money, instead of inheriting it, you know how to make it back. Not that I'm some super rich asshole, but I earned everything I had and if it went away this afternoon I would be pissed to no end, but I would just clamp down and make it back. It's kind of our M.O. in the finance world. We know a lot of this shit is paper sometimes and not wealth and if disaster strikes we double down our efforts and make it back. And often times, more than we lost.
I know plenty of people that got fucked hard in the "credit crisis" and lost proportionally as much as the average Joes. The difference b/w their losses? My friends said "fuck this" and worked to make it back. We eat what we kill and go get what we want versus sitting back and being reactionary.
That's my rant for the day.
Great post! Better to have
Great post!
Better to have been rich and lost it. I think the more you see and the more exposed you are to various things you life, the better off. To go from poor to rich lets you experience new places, new social circles, etc that you may never otherwise. One could argue these events could do more harm than good but for me the worst is when you never had an opportunity.
Thanks for the post Eddie.
Thanks for the post Eddie. Really makes you think and maybe put things in perspective. I would have to say that having had money and lost it all is worse. The reason being that once you get accustomed to the so-called "good life" making significant life changes once you lose that wealth it will have an impact on a day-in day-out basis: what food you buy, where you go out to eat, where you travel for vacations, whether or not you can afford to take vacations, what presents you buy for yourself or loved ones, what car you drive, where you live etc. You get the idea.
I also think that chasing money is not the best option, although I am guilty of doing it myself. It seems as if in the beginning of one's career, the more you chase it the more it seeps through your fingers, at some point I would hope that it will accumulate at a faster rate than I can spend it. It's hard not to get caught up with buying everything that everyone else owns or wants to own, but as long as you stay as true to yourself as you possibly can, I believe that you can make money and live a decent enough life to actually enjoy it.
They say slavery was done
They say slavery was done away with in the year 1863. I say it paved the way for slavery to become instutionalized. Whether you choose to believe it or not, everyone who "has" to work is a slave, and will never be able to enjoy what the world has to offer.
Haven't you guys ever asked why?
Why do I wake up each day to slave over a job that I hate. Is the purpose of every finite day you live on the planet just to make more money than the previous?
I'm up in the air on this
I'm up in the air on this one. I was fortunate enough to be born into a pretty wealthy family (7 figure annual income), so I've always had everything I've ever needed -- minus a trust fund. As a result, I've never really "desired" excessive money. I obviously make a boatload now given my finance job, but every year I simply bank my bonus and the money chills in the stock market.
Meanwhile, my "newly wealthy" peers have really let the money go to their head. They weren't always this way, the money changed them. They measure their self worth by their paycheck and are sometimes unwilling to interact with the common folk. It's really quite depressing to watch. If they were to lose it all, they would not fair so well.
Conclusion: A lot of it depends on the individual. Some people are morphed by money and are destined to live a less fulfilling life if they were to lose it.
CompBanker
Even though I am still in
Even though I am still in University I have had a fairly interesting ride so far and feel I can comment on this.
I was brought up in a moderately wealthy family but was never really given a lot of cash to 'play' with. School fees were paid for but if I wanted a new TV, Playstation and so on it was either christmas or birthday. As such I started a few small businesses over the years, it always meant I had more cash than most of my peers, but not significantly more.
However, during my second year of university at 20 years old I struck gold with a manufacturing business I decided to start-up ($3000 loan from my dad @ 10%) and within about 8 months I was personally making over $20,000 per week - $1m USD per year.
As such I was catapaulted into wealth very rapidly, I rented the nicest apartment in town, bought a new M3, ate out every meal and all that crap - even had nights out which cost over $1000 in a place where drinks in a club are $2-3 and a year ago I would have spent maybe $20. It was a hell of an experience.
However, that stuff all now seems normal and I don't really do it anymore as it is no longer exciting and new - and wasting money gets pretty boring pretty fucking quick! When you attain something it is not better, it becomes the norm, and what you had before just seems worse.
The business itself was extremely volatile & very high-stress work but it was fucking exciting and the money was awesome. However, given that I could get by on $15k a year very comfortably the money soon lost meaning, instead the numbers became personal targets that I would work against and attempt to beat. If pushed I would probably say the ups-and-downs of making the money far outweighed the actual 'having' it or even spending it.
I guess what I learnt from it all, as I am just now closing the business as it is no longer viable, is that no matter how much cash you have it will always just seem the norm, and more will always be better, just as less is always worse. When you get it it is initially fun, when you lose it it is intially shit. Soon enough though that new level becomes the norm.
For me i'd sure as hell prefer that mega-exciting roller coaster ride through life, so for me having it and losing it will always beat that flat risk free curve of never having it at all.
I agree with Tireds. Once
I agree with Tireds. Once you're used to that lifestyle, its hard to go back to slumming it with the common folk. I've never been the type to spend excessively on cars, apartments, clothes etc, but I don't want to have to penny-pinch when it comes to other stuff either (eating out, partying, traveling) i.e. stuff you can only enjoy when you're in your 20's.
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You only live once. I would
You only live once. I would be rich and lose it all, even if it would be truly painful, because I would have tasted more of the spectrum of human experience.
Then again, the best way to
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