Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Frank Chen's avatar

Thank you for sharing your financial vulnerabilities 🙏

I feel many of these things too, and am in the process of dealing with them as well.

I resonated with "I want the resource without using it." I overcame this by getting 2x of the resource instead 😂, discovering that it was just a moving goal post, and then really leaned into the whole mindset of "money is used to solve problems" and the biggest glaring problem I had was being a hollow shell of a person from continuous work that didn't align with my values.

I still struggle with that feeling of "behind" rather than "set". I'm working on this by trying to define my life beyond net worth. I still check it during my sabbatical to make sure I'm ok, but really, it's that anxious self looking to make sure it's okay. I have yet to figure out how to help accept this anxious part of myself in a way that's more healthy (away from spreadsheets, net worth, etc).

For the smaller things like "should I add extra meat to this sandwich?" or if things are "worth it", I find that it helps to put things into the frame of things I really love or unforgettable experiences. $50 for [something]? Is that worth the joy of a jiujitsu seminar or a nice meal with my partner?

Or, is it worth $1k to take a flight to China/Taiwan and learn about my parent's history and spend time with them for 2-3 weeks? Goddamn, it could've been $2-3k and I think I still would've gone (an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime chance).

Expand full comment
Dave Kang's avatar

Hi Vinamrata,

Thanks for sharing, I wrestle with this too, I don’t think it ever really goes away, as each phase of life (child, single, married, parent, retirement) brings new money challenges.

One thing that has helped me is trying to decouple money from my personal identity and sense of worth. Instead of using it as a measuring stick for my life, which will never be enough, I just think of it as a tool, just like I have a hammer in the garage. It’s good to have when I need to build something but I don’t hang it on my belt everywhere I go and compare it to hammers other people have in their garage.

The more dispassionate I am about money, the less it seems to worry me. This is especially helpful for the comparison games we all play. If I can say to myself, “money is not the measure of a good life”, then I also no longer care how much other people have.

The second thing that has helped is to realize “more is never enough”. As long as you use money as a measuring stick, getting more keeps you in the same worry/comparison games, just with higher income people. And my observation has been that the higher the income bracket, the more obsessed people become about status games.

Money has powerful emotional effects on us, with contributing factors from our culture, parents, society, friends, etc so there can be a lot to unravel, I wish you the best on your journey to freedom from worry.

Expand full comment
17 more comments...

No posts