[tluyben2]

Yes, but fighting your whole life to get rich at stuff that sucks is not worth it. Yes, it sucks to have your cat die, it sucks more to have you die wishing you did something more interesting than sit in board meetings and think about gathering mo money most of your waking life. There is a balance and that balance is not as hard as 'getting rich'; you don't need to 'get rich' to make your life not suck and get your cat treated, drive a nice car, have a pool you never use, a sauna which has cobwebs etc; that's all very doable without getting rich. And your life might not suck very early on that way instead of when you made it. I'm not sure how old you are but on HN there is a kind of altered reality where people get rich when they are young; this is not normal; most rich people got rich > 50. If you have had 'a sucky life' because of that till then you have been very much wasting your life.

[judk]

Most people would be very happy if their worst problem in life was thinking it could have been more mentally stimulating. People have regret on their deathbed because people don't want to die and wish they could have their cake and eat it too, not because they suddenly found wisdom.

[tluyben2]

Anecdotal but I had a lot of people dying around me stating they spent too much time chasing money and too little on living. And I know a lot of pensioners as well who say the same thing; now they are living the life they wanted but have little time left (they think; I always come up with statistics and say they have 20-30 years more but he, who listens to that?). Another salient detail; most guys say they shouldn't have had kids because it took away too much time and most women reget not having more. Anecdotal, still, two countries and around 100 people. Research papers were written with less :)

[nileshtrivedi]

Exactly. It isn't that money isn't good or useful, but that it takes effort to earn it. Nobody should say no to free money but if it has to be earned, then there is an optimization problem at hand.

[jonmb]

Indeed. A lot more people could be happy if they didn't believe in the lie that says you must be super rich to be happy. Lottery winners have already proven that a ton of money doesn't guarantee anything. Rich celebrities deal with depression.

Going from poverty to middle class is definitely an improvement, but there comes a point where more money doesn't help. Diminishing returns.