[sfeng]

What so many people fail to realize is the true purpose of money is to avoid having to spend time with people you don’t like, or do things you don’t value. So if you have a $400/million per month job, but you have to have meetings all day long, you’re not really rich. Similarly, no offense to billionaires, but the ones I’ve met have been someone manic and misanthropic. If you are using your access to spend your time with them, you are not really rich in my book.

True wealth is being able to spend all your time doing things with and for people you love. It sounds trite, but the truth is many people miss the opportunity to jump off the train and enjoy their life while they can.

[bluGill]

A few years back I took some mandatory training. As part of this we were told to write down our personal goals which we all did. Then the trainer said something profound "I can tell you are engineers - mostly I give this class to executives who get mad when they do the above exercise. They realize their goals are things like spending time with family and yet instead of going home after this class they will be getting on an airplane to get to their next meeting".

I would love to have a private yacht, or whatever other symbol of wealth you can dream of. I have plans for what I would do with a house more than double my current house in size. However it isn't worth going into upper management to get those things.