[speeder]

I want to get rich.

But I don't want to do it because I want stuff. I don't want a Audi, or a Maserati, or a fancy home, or the newest gadget.

I have a objective, a plan, for me, and for future generations, and I know how much it will cost, and doing it will require me to be rich.

And I know how much problems it will attract, how much relationships it will wreck, and how much danger it will bring to my life.

But I don't want to get rich for pure hedonism, far form that, it is because of my beliefs, I believe some stuff need to be done, and I concluded that few people will do it, meaning that I will have to do it, since I have to do it, I will figure a way to get rich, and do it.

To me, it will be worth, because it will be having the means of pursuing what I believe, but it will also be a sacrifice, it will be the opposite of a life that I had for a long time, it will be the opposite of being laid back, almost lazy, work only for pleasure, and live a peaceful life. It will mean politics, hardwork, backstabbing...

But I believe I have a duty to do, and I must do it, and I will venture doing that, and when I get rich, I know I will have to fight very hard to use the money for what I planned, instead of wasting it all in pleasurable stuff.

[rquantz]

The OP seems to think most people want to get rich because they think it will make them happy, and he may be right. But in my life, most of the decisions I've made with my happiness in mind have had the side effect of reducing my income -- going to music school, leaving my day job, choosing to spend time with my girlfriend instead of getting in 8 billable hours every day.

That being said, I've recently made the decision to become, if not rich, at least well off enough that I have money to spare. My parents are aging and deeply in debt, my younger sister is sick (as she has been her whole life) and will never be able to support herself or hold down a job to give her health insurance. And I'd like to have kids and give them as many opportunities as I had.

It's not about happiness for me, per se. I've been given certain gifts, and I think I can use them to provide for my people. I think that's my responsibility.

[im3w1l]

>But in my life, most of the decisions I've made with my happiness in mind have had the side effect of reducing my income -- going to music school, leaving my day job, choosing to spend time with my girlfriend instead of getting in 8 billable hours every day.

But this is exactly it. If you were dirt poor you couldn't have done these things. Conversely if you were richer you would be able to do less of them. I suppose, anyway.

[rquantz]

This is a long time after, and maybe you won't see my response. But in fact for most of my adult life I have been dirt poor. I scraped by for years as a freelance musician. The decision I made as a high school student was that money wasn't important to me, which is why I chose a field that would make me happy instead of being lucrative.

The day job a I quit was a 34K/year entry level web dev gig that didn't pay me enough to live in NYC and do any saving. I quit without having any runway because I was miserable and decided that I had learned as much as I was going to there.

My point is that I've been poor, and decisions I've made about being happier have not involved making more money. I've been rethinking that decision lately.

[willismichael]

Why backstabbing? Is that really necessary? Sure, politics and hard work, and even hustling (as used by Steven Corona here: http://stevecorona.com/college-was-my-biggest-mistake, rather than the "semi-legal activities" pop definition)

I just don't see backstabbing as a necessary (or even effective) means to accomplish an end, no matter how noble the end may be.

[speeder]

I don't mean I will backstab.

I mean I will get backstabbed.

When you are rich, or working toward getting rich, people WILL backstab you.

[paul]

Wherever you go, there you are.

[jean377]

I have a similar idea.

I'm totally tired of seeing people getting rich, so they can humiliate others from the top of their wrongly concepted superiority. They came, see and conquer for the very sake of saying they did. And they don't stop. They suck every working class neck dry so they can feel more powerful in society, like they are super humans for what they've accomplished.

But feeling powerful, in this case, is a social concept. And as a social concept it needs a society to exist. Like sound needs matter. And so, this people only feel this way for wasting thousands of lives, because the lives they waste are feeding their ego! Media is aways talking about this kinds, because its what we all want to hear. We all purse professional success and money to be looked upon, to be served, to have whats exclusive. We feed it.

What's worse of it all is that we teach this behavior to our kids, by giving them fancy stuff. We forge the pointless consumerist concepts of superiority into their heads and towards their very character, as our father did to us. And thats why we just can't be free of the thoughts of having. Because it's printed to our very psychological ids.

I also want to get rich. And I also have a plan for future generations. I want to have the time to create a new concept of education from scratch, based not on competition, individualism and fear like the one we have today, built over a mass production platform, teachers that only teach for a living, ranking grades that only tell that you have better memory, or that you cheat better, that carves into students heads that their dreams are impossible to achieve, that they must work 70 hours a week, obey the rules and be a law abiding mediocre form of life whose only legacy will be their obituary expenses; but based on cooperation and curiosity, printing into the young ones heads better values, like teamwork, self development, sharing, humility, honor.

I want them to know that they can do everything they imagine, I want them to know that nothing is impossible and that they have every requirement to achieve all of their dreams. But they must know also that they must work together and that they must work for , not the self, not society, but for humanity, and that's where they'll find their pleasure to feed the hedonism. I don't want people to keep away from pleasure. I just want to redirect it to something more constructive than consumerism, power, individualism. And if I can teach this to a few ones, they will multiply over generations and gradually take the world.

I may sound religious but i don't consider myself not even agnostic. The only thing I believe is humanity. And for 24 years I've seen it's darkest side ruling over the world. But I know that in every sucked out neck there's hope and good will to change our situation. In every new brain there's another chance to build good character to multiply the idea. I have no kids yet, and I don't know if I want a child of mine living in this horrible world we live in. But if you do, rethink the values you want your child's character to be built upon. He/She will feed the status quo, or help change it.

As long as we, the voiceless millions, compete against each other, we will be weak. Competition divides. Division makes us smaller. We must cooperate. Human cooperation is not linear, it's a geometric progression. Apart we are lots of ones. Together we are millions. Together we can change.

[edraferi]

It's very possible that you are right. Some things are too far out for the mainstream economy to support. However, if you see a real need, then there should be a way to finance a solution.

What can you do for your dream before making your first kajillion? You can develop the proper skills, research the problem, form a plan. You can find people who agree with you, raise funds. Start small and switch to it full time when you can.

Waiting to hit a golden figure will really delay the start of your project. Worse, you may find yourself always needing "just a little bit more" before you can cut over and start. If you truely must wait to self-fund this way, keep that target figure in your mind always, and have the guts to jump when you're ready.

Good luck!

[speeder]

Before the rise of the ideal of the "self made man", the nobility was popular, not because they were rich or nobles, but because their self-sustaining income meant they could engage in things society needed but were not profitable at the time, like science, art, culture, defensive military (of course, being a mercenary, or a plunderer, is quite profitable), and so on.

When the industrial revolution happened, the necessity for workers, in all levels, including managers, directors, and so on, made necessary for society to invent a reason for people to do those jobs, to change their old ways, then it became honorable to be a self made man, a guy that would use hard work to earn his income, instead of being a noble.

It was that time, that then being a noble became a thing to be derided for, and of course, the behaviour of many nobles did not helped things for them.

But originally what made a noble, "noble", was being to sacrifice himself, and do what needed to be done, without expecting payment, and he could do that because he already had income (usually in the form of some contract with people that farmed his land, be taxing them, or loaning the land to them, or something else).

[swombat]

Not sure why you got downvoted... Seems like a very cogent, honest and down to earth comment.

[ph0rque]

This is a very noble comment. I feel the same way about my side project, except I don't think it requires me to get rich to attain it. In fact, I'm not sure what it requires, so I'm finding out as I go along.

[elemenohpee]

That's how I see it too. The article seemed to focus on, yeah you can buy more stuff but stuff doesn't make you happy. Yeah, we know that, what money really buys you is the freedom to pursue your own goals and not be slave to someone else's. Especially if your goals are things that are not "profitable" in the pecuniary sense, pursuing them full time is just not an option when you need to eat.

[megablast]

>and for future generations

One of he worst things you can do for your kids is give them a reason not to work.

[speeder]

Believe me, they will have lots of work.

My project is not get rich and dump money on the kids. Hell no.

Obviously, I expect that two or three generations down, if thinks work well, my family will have kids being born already rich, I hope that those kids won't undo that I will try to do.

[imissmyjuno]

What's wrong with hedonism? Or am I misreading what you're saying.

[speeder]

I am very much against hedonism.

It is wrong because hedonism is usually tied to individualism, and a individual pursuit of happiness, that sometimes might work in short term, or for one generation or two, but end always results in problems for the collectivity that make everyone LESS happy.

The current way of life, hoardings things, "stuff", without a purpose or objective, wanting to be in the "haves" just to not be a "have not", agressively wanting more money aiming just to pleasure yourself or be more happy, only results in people, inadvertently or not, taking things from others that needed them.

Many societies with far less money and technology were happier, because what make people happy is a question of how they are spending their time.

If you work 70 hours a week for a very long time, to buy things that make you happy, you are wasting your time, you won't get happy this way, and might make others unhappy, starting with people close to you, like abandoned family or significant other, or children, to people that you hurt without even knowing, when for example in your own pursuit for happiness you do things without noticing how evil they are, like working for a cigarrete factory for example.

The most happy societies were ones that people worked 40 hours a week, period, no more chores, if the men were working 40 hours outside home, women worked 40 inside home, but both worked 40 hours, nothing more, our society people started to take increasingly burdens pursuing more money, and don't noticed that most people now work way more than 40 hours, and have long commuting times, and have few time to do what they enjoy, or to improve themselves and others.

My uncle once told me, that he noticed how pointless it was how much he was working, when he finally could buy a big TV and a PS3 (those are absurdly expensive here in Brazil, and people have much less income too, so they are absolute luxuries) and noticed he did not had time to enjoy it, he bought his dream videogame, and his dream game (Gran Turismo 5), and just could not play it, then he realized, what was the point?

[rdouble]

Hedonism isn't about hoarding stuff. Working more hours to buy more stuff is the opposite of hedonism. Contemporary hedonism implies something like partying at Ibiza 24/7, but the original meaning was more like the enlightened dad spending more time at home cooking organic meals for his family.

[speeder]

Hedonism is doing whatever you do, seeking pleasure.

Sometimes yes, this mean working your ass off to hoard stuff.

Sometimes it means using your daddy money buying fancy cars and crashing them.

[christiangenco]

...James Gatz?

[speeder]

Who?

[pcl]

A character from The Great Gatsby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby

[Mz]

I am curious what your big goal is and why you think it requires "wealth" to accomplish it. You can email me if you don't want to state it publicly (my gmail is talithamichele).

[speeder]

Oh, it is very political and related to very long term thinking, if I disclose here the result will be a crazy flamewar (because it is a sensitive topic, that I know lots of people support, and lots of people think it is horribly wrong).

So, it is better not :)

[krapp]

Does it happen to involve an island shaped like a skull or a really really really large orbital mirror?

If so, are you hiring?

[Mz]

If it is politically sensitive, money may be the worst way to pursue it. If you cannot get grassroots support, probably better to leave well enough alone. But less ego gratifying, certainly. Feeding your ego is usually a really terrible reason to do something "political". Given your response, I would encourage you to spend some time wondering what your real goal and motive is.

[illuminate]

On the contrary, money is the "best" way to pursue political ends, much more successfully than grassroots support.

[Mz]

Please notice that I put the word political in quotation marks. Due to his unwillingness to genuinely discuss it, even privately, I have no idea what it is. Most likely, neither do you.

Also, please stop bugging me. You have a track record of hounding me. You have done nothing at all to prove that aren't merely looking for new ways to harrass me.

Thanks.

[speeder]

I don't want to be a politician, and there are grassroots support already, but it is something that although affect politics deeply, it is also highly cultural.

I believe there has been a conscious efforts by my opponents to sneak their people into classrooms for generations, I cannot undo it, but I can try to sidestep it.

But I won't discuss here because the main point of the opposition was exactly make lots of people believe they are 100% right and that those they oppose, are not only wrong, but evil.