[anigbrowl]

You might have other things you love to do but which are much less likely to yield up the financial security you want (or need, if you have a family). Suppose you want to dedicate yourself to, I don't know, singing opera. Maybe you know you'll never make it big professionally but you'd like to run an amateur opera company and perform moderately well for free. Or you want to run a charity of some sort. Or paint. Or...

[Poiesis]

Yes, I get this. And if this applies, sure--take the money. I guess you weren't doing what you wanted before. But what if you were already doing what you wanted? If you're lucky enough to wake up and do something you'd pay to do--and get paid handsomely for it--why the heck would you want to stop for more money?

Again--already making good money, already doing what you love: why stop?

[dagw]

Am I the only person who has several things I want to do? Even if I was making $1million a year in my dream programming job I can totally see myself taking the $40million, quitting that job and trying out starting up something with one of the other things I want to do. Who knows I might even enjoy that more.