How much is enough?

Last week, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person stepped down as CEO of Amazon, a company he had built grounds up and reaped the benefits for all these years. Was he intrigued by someone else, Elon Musk, now challenging him or eventually getting ahead at the top and hence he wants to focus his energy and passion in something equally jazzy or he is just too bored of being called the richest person? We will never know the answer!

Unless you are Musk himself, who saw his net worth increase 7-fold last year or you have struck a multi-million dollar lottery, your net worth would have steadily increased over the past few years (if at all) and will grow gradually over time. Of course this is very relative; some people may call a few thousand dollars as gradual or other ultra rich will weigh it in millions?

Regardless, as your net worth creeps up, you will find yourself in a different spot; your colleagues will change, your social structure will change. In order to keep up with these changes, your lifestyle will change. If you are coming to what you once called an affluent neighborhood, your life’s perspective will change, your habits will change.

You will take certain things for granted and then would like to explore newer things. You may want to travel in business class instead of economy for a couple of trips and then you will get habituated to business class until you start aspiring for first class. Well, what next? You may not want to travel with other strangers and will look for chartering or even buying your own aircraft.

Commensurate to your new status either your friend circle will change or better yet, your friends will also get richer so that you don’t have to look for new ones. And yes, they will start playing golf and will drag you with them!

As you get richer, you would like to live in a house by the beach, go on frequent luxurious vacations, buy a yacht to keep up with your rising social status; well the list goes on, until you get fed up with the same and want a new thrill, bought by money!

Trump on his campaign trail boasted that he had to stay in a 3-star hotel once implying that he always stays in a 5-star resort, possibly his own! At first, you may curse him for being braggadocio, but in the social circle that he lives, this could be a norm. A majority of folks are not there and hence think it’s an outrageous statement.

When your wants become your needs, your wallet will start feeling empty. If you manage to keep it full at that level, your new wants eventually turn into the next set of needs.

Is there any upper bound to what net worth will satisfy you? Probably not! Just ask Bezos or Musk. The word infinite is the only possible answer!

If you are satisfied with what you have and keep your needs fulfilled and wants in check, you would have achieved the infinite net worth that humans have always longed for.