The compulsion to acquire ever more wealth and more numerous possessions is something that just escapes me. I do not understand it. Why do people think they need, or even want, a house with 14 bedrooms? How many beds do you sleep in? Just one. Having a house with 14 bedrooms just means you have greatly increased the number of things you have to care of. A house that size requires hiring somebody to help keep it clean. Why does somebody with a net worth of 10 million dollars work 80 hours a week to achieve a net worth of 20 million dollars? What is the purpose of that extra pile of money? It has nothing to do with being hungry, or for that matter with eating well. Someone with a net worth of 10 million dollars can eat steak at every meal if he wants to. If his net worth increases to 20 million dollars, does he then eat a lot more steak? I eat beans and rice on a regular basis. If I had several million dollars I would still eat beans and rice because that is what I like.
Somehow people convince themselves that if you have more of something than another person or if what you have is better quality that somehow makes you a better person than the one you compare yourself with. Suppose you are doing pretty well and decide you can afford (barely) to buy a brand-new Suburban. You are enormously proud of it and make sure it is parked in the driveway rather than in the garage, so all the neighbors can see it. Then your water heater ruptures and you have to call a plumber (I fix my own plumbing but most people do not). The plumber pulls up in a new Suburban just like yours, except that his has leather seats and custom wheels. Do you feel your pride in ownership of your new vehicle diminish because a plumber (a plumber!) has one that is a little better? You probably do. Why is that? The pride you take in ownership of something fine may come from pleasure in what a wonderful thing it is that you own. That is fine. I own a few (a very few!) things that are truly first-rate and I am really glad that I have them. My pleasure in the ownership and use of those things is in no way lessened if I learn that a friend has something just like it.
There are two distinct attitudes here. One is He who dies with the most toys, wins. The other is, If you die rich, you did not handle things properly. We have all heard the saying that You can't take it with you but many people do not appear to believe it. The truth is: You really cannot take it with you. When you are dead you are not rich; you are just dead. As for those who engage in amassing obscene wealth but spend it lavishly rather than hoarding it, is a $3000 rug really better in some way than a $40 rug? Does it somehow feed their sense of self-worth to buy a $3000 rug and then walk on it? I do understand that some of the finer things in life really are fine. Achieving a certain level of financial success enables you to buy that stunning $6000 television instead of watching the second-hand $200 set with the washed-out color. It is true that having substantial funds available can make life more pleasant in many ways. What I cannot comprehend is the urge to keep driving yourself to attain more. If you have a net worth of, say, 10 million dollars, what possible purpose would another 10 million serve?
One of John D. MacDonald's books is about a man who apparently drowned, although the body was never found. The man owned parts of several developments, a construction company that was building them, and a lumber yard that supplied the materials. After his death, it was discovered that for the past several months he had been converting assets into cash and avoiding creditors. The suspicion arose that his death had been faked. An investigator asked a local insurance what kind of man he had been. He said the man was like one of those guys you may have seen at a craps table in Las Vegas. He was the guy who was talking and laughing, moving his bets around, always calculating the odds. He was having more fun and making more money than anybody else at the table, because he was working harder than anybody else. Then one day he realized that while he had been focused on calculating odds, taking chances, making money, they had chained him to the table. He knew he could continue to figure the odds and rake in more chips, but it would not be fun anymore.
Too many people are chained to the idea that more stuff is somehow better, and more money has to be better. How much is enough? They do not believe there is any such thing. Acquisition for the sake of acquisition becomes their operating principle. They are doomed to be always unhappy because no matter what they have, they want more. Andrew Carnegie said that if you die rich, you did not do it right. He had so much he could not give it all away in his lifetime, but he tried. If you diligently pursue wealth because there are things you want to do that require more assets than you currently possess, then by all means go for it. If you view wealth as an end in itself, you will have a lot of big numbers on your financial statements but they are just numbers.