My personal theory is that thoughtful people who reach the mountaintop often look around and are profoundly disappointed by how little emotional satisfaction accompanies the achievement. Most mega rich people are not only bad people, but almost unimaginably shallow and thoughtless. I think it is common for “normal” people who join the club to not only be disgusted by their peers but also to feel guilt and shame at how they’ve spent their time, often at the expense of close family and personal relationships.
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I really balk at the idea there are “bad people” and particularly in this thread it seems important to say.
Some people are just … asleep. They don’t know how to deal with the pain inside them, the loneliness and feelings of separateness. They don’t see those feelings for what they are, or maybe even recognize their own suffering. When I look at this thread, I see lots of people who may be hurting but recognize it–and this is vital.
This story of Hsieh seems to be the story of someone who didn’t really know it. Who kept chasing highs as a way to address the feeling of separateness.
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You are all free to disagree, obviously. Like everyone my perspective is based on my life experience. I’ve spent a ton of time around these people and I know how they think and act.
You know how Jack Nicklaus thinks doctors lie about people having COVID to make more money? That is absolutely mainstream thought among America’s 9 figure club. I’ve personally heard it many times. Now imagine you spent the majority of your life striving to be able to join The Maidstone Club, or Bel Air, or buy a house in the Hamptons, and you finally get there and your new peers spend their time spouting that crap? You go to a dinner party and they complain about taxes and gossip about each other. That’s super freaking depressing for even a moderately thoughtful person.
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I struggle to think outside of media and stories, so your post reminded me of Matt Damon talking about this very topic at length when asked what it was like to win an Oscar at 27. He thought that night about how lucky he was to get one at such a young age and see how empty the achievement could be. He thought about the immense sacrifice he would have made–and as you said, many people already have made–and then they get an Oscar at 72 and realize that if that’s a hole inside you, an Oscar is never going to fill it.
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How does this show up in your own life?
What are some smaller-scale examples that illustrate this?
What do you do to cultivate a life for yourself different than what you describe? Have you been able to?
To me, the problem you describe is present in all classes for a person who perceives it, so I’m not expecting you to literally talk about the horrors of the Hamptons if that’s not your lifestyle. Though I do recall you indulging on the green a time or two, you capitalist pig.
Wanted to pull this boredsocial post into here because it’s super relatable for me, to the point that if things start not going well for me I’ll have to fight the desire to just let it destruct so I can “restart” on the other side. This isn’t something I’ve ever really articulated but it’s pretty dead-on and I think it fits in the Mental Health thread.
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Yeah you don’t want to know how many times, on average, I restart a strategy game because I made a mistake and it isn’t perfect anymore and I won’t get exactly what I want.
Not being like that IRL is just incredibly difficult, and it’s why toxic perfectionism is toxic. It’s not motivating to improve, it’s motivating to blow everything up and start over.
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I don’t have an overwhelming feeling of that in real life but I think everyone has that somewhat. You always have regrets and want to be able to go back and do things differently, I do for sure. I guess yall are indicating more so to the point to where you might blow it up to be able to restart or for smaller regrets due to a perfectionist feeling. I’ve actually considered that in recent days with my divorce if I just chose to end it just so I could blow it up and restart essentially and its probably somewhat true but I’m not sure thats the worst thing. Although its not due to a perfectionist feeling as my current situation was way way short of perfect. But I definitely have that feeling of wanting to go back and relive my life and make different choices.
I told my sister the other day during a heart to heart kinda that I moreso wished when i was younger that people around me had just told me that there were different choices I could make. Not that I was ever forced in to anything really, but just I was made to believe that you do this, this, and this and thats how life goes, and no one ever really was like hey kid you can also do these other things and make these different choices.
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Have you been around any of the ones that rapid fire refresh DJIA all fucking day while never looking away but still simultaneously bitching about all of that stuff? I think Francesa even does this on the air sometimes. I’ve known a few people with high 7-to-low-8-figure net worth that are hooked on this like slot machines and insignificant daily market swings control their emotions and attitude.
Having a rough day and really just want to say that. … I look back on my posts this year, here and in the meditation thread, and I can see growth and healing and know this moment will pass. Still does not feel good. My thoughts are a bit frantic and I can feel shame and a fear of abandonment.
There’s also a part of me that wants to beat myself up–call myself a fraud, for thinking I’d made progress. Have to remember that all this is temporary.
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This got easier for me to let go of once I imagined more extreme circumstances that no one including me would ever have any power over. At least not the power I would hope to have if I could travel back in time.
Like saying cool, knowing what you know now, you could go back in time to stop capitalism from destroying the world is about as hopeless as thinking you could go back in time and know how to fix (or escape) an abusive relationship, a bad job, how to convince the people you love to take better care of themselves.
I am just trying out saying this out loud, but I was raised in a kind of cult and had myself committed to an asylum to escape. I often think back on what could have been different knowing what I know now.
The answer is nothing would have been different. Knowing what I know now about how to take care of myself depends on me being outside of those situations. We all may start with different talents and aptitudes, but torture and abuse will crush any person. If I could travel back in time to do my childhood over again with my knowledge now, I would find myself powerless and engaging in increasingly frantic and compulsive behaviors just to cope and survive until I could one day escape again. Some situations can’t be fixed. The only solution is to let go and focus on the things that are both within my power and healthy to reach for.
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I’m already experiencing this and I’m just in the middle class.
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Same.
Not trying to lessen what you are feeling, but you at least have a wife, right?
For me, I spent the better part of five years chasing a tough degree that I thought would give me the good life, after spending most of my life broke as hell. The only way to work a full time job in your mid 20’s and also do well in a full time curriculum is to cast some things aside, and unfortunately for me while everyone was meeting their husbands and wives and settling down, I was just studying and working like crazy so I could graduate with very little debt. Now as I sit here in my very own apartment, after a shit day at a job I’m not sure that I don’t hate, contemplating what takeout i’ll eat tonight for the 46th night in a row - alone - it really strikes me sometimes and I ask myself, “this is the reward you were after?”
Doesn’t help that my feed is full of baby pics from every friend and acquaintance I’ve ever had (i’m in my early 30’s). Even though I accomplished quite a lot, it feels somehow like I missed something I won’t quite get back. I wonder if I wasted my best years.
But, the shallow side of me likes having financial security and being able to buy what the fuck I want within reason and without stress. That’s the only way I can console myself, because these thoughts lead to some very dark places that I don’t want to go.
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I was in a somewhat similar boat at your age. Now I’m a 38 year old married dude with a kid on the way. Covid uncertainty aside if that’s what you want it’s absolutely not too late.
Granted you’ll probably want to locate a younger female to procreate with but can confirm that isn’t necessarily a bad thing 
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Yea that’s the super depressing thing. I don’t want kids, for moral and practical reasons. I like having freedom and don’t really want that kind of responsibility. So where does that leave me? Living alone, eating takeout, playing a shtload of video games. Which, to some people might seem a great life, and tbh I don’t hate it really - but there is something missing.
Maybe it’s just the inherent and fundamental meaninglessness of life that I’m butting into and I’m attributing some meaning to having a family, because that’s how all my peers attribute meaning. I don’t think I’d feel more fulfilled or happier if I had a family but I think I would probably feel less alone.
And to come full circle - I think the very very rich have had similar thoughts as me and at one point went “fuck it, if this is all there is, might as well have as much of it as possible” and never looked back.
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I think having a partner would absolutely help but if you don’t want kids then def don’t have them imo.
Not having kids def doesn’t mean you live alone though, plenty of people don’t want kids imo
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Yeah I think your second paragraph nails it. Life is inherently meaningless imo, we have to manufacture meaning ourselves. Something I struggle with as well. It sounds trite but maybe doing some charity work would be beneficial.
Definitely nothing wrong with not wanting kids.
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I dont think im capable of being monogamous, my standards are too high, and I have such a difficult and stubborn personality that most people I’ve been with for long periods of time have found me insufferable or exasperating. So when I go down the list of things that makes someone compatible, it seems very much like the person who would be a good fit does not exist, even with several billion choices out there.
Sorry to make this thread about me, that was not my intent, just thoughts that have been running through my head lately and have been working through it in therapy. When I brought up the notion of spending the rest of my life alone, my therapist just nodded and agreed that I probably would and that I can cope with it. Maybe she was just agreeing with me for the sake of it, but even my family has given up on me in that regard.
These are all me problems, obviously the problem isn’t with the entire dating world. I am attractive and fairly intelligent, but i’m just a bit of an asshole sometimes. I guess I’m just not really that willing to change.
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Doesn’t seem like a good thing for your therapist to agree with imo but I’m sure she has her reasons.
I’m sure you can find someone, or maybe just relax your standards a little when you find someone that matches well with you otherwise.