One surprising but widespread effect of large scale wealth is guilt. Yes. You can work hard for decades, be smart about your spending, amass financial independence and the coveted HNWI or VHNWI or even UHNWI status, and feel incredibly guilty about enjoying it.
When you reach financial independence, you are quite likely over the million dollar mark as well. You might have even done quite well in the business world, maybe had a successful exit, or otherwise came into high enough net worth that now you do not need to work if you don’t want to work. This is the first of several problems that lead to guilt. You take some vacations. You have some fun. You check off all the bucket list items. You don’t feel guilty at first. That comes later when you hear about your friends and family struggling. You see people having a hard time. Then you realize that you never struggle anymore.
You never worry about the rent or food. You can have the best healthcare, the best wine, and the best everything else. And you wonder why you. Why not them. Once you get past the temptation to presume you are better than everyone else or smarter than everyone else, you really do wonder how you got so lucky. But it wasn’t luck, you remind yourself. You worked hard for years and years. You sacrificed and saved and invested or you worked relentlessly to make that business work. You spend a little time reminding yourself that you EARNED this. Unless, of course, you just fell into it, which can happen. That only makes the guilt worse. And the guilt is another force pushing you to not show off your wealth. You don’t need to rub it in anyone’s face. To some extent, you are right. When people are suffering, they don’t care to hear you preaching from your luxurious ivory tower. But those who truly love you, actually do like to see you happy. The lesson there is to be happy, but don’t lecture or preach. Yes, share your joy. But don’t be blind to their suffering.
The guilt is not just about having the best stuff, or not having worries about rent and food and medicine. The guilt is also about TIME. You now have time. You can do anything you want. Some HNWIs choose to keep working. Nothing much changes. If you love your work, why not? But are you working out of guilt? Are you working out or not knowing what else to do? Or are you working out of a true sense of purpose? These are valid questions. Your time here on this earth is limited and precious. You can choose to solve major world challenges. Or you can choose to hike in the woods and nap in a hammock. But frankly, you get bored. After all the vacations and the bucket list, you are left with a need to feel purposeful. You basic human nature needs to feel like what you spend your time on matters.
The combination of wealth guilt, and boredom, often leads HNWIs to the same ultimate end … give it away. Some give away their time, others give away their money. Some give away both. Some pledge that upon their death, it will all go to charity. One by one, they go through the same thought journey to choose a cause to champion; or two or three. If they have some celebrity power, they can give that too. It’s fascinating to see which causes each person chooses. They are wildly varied, but based on their own individual answers to the same thought experiments.
Let’s try it now…. consider the following questions:
- What is the most important problem in the world today, as YOU personally see it?
- What one problem could you address that would make a lot of other problems irrelevant?
- What one problem could you address that would have the biggest impact? Or the biggest impact for the money?
- What is the most important problem to tackle right this minute?
- What will matter more a hundred or a thousand years from now?
- Suppose you had a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, ten million, a hundred million dollars to put toward this problem. How would you tackle it? What would you do, or what kind of solutions would you fund?
- What if you only had a month to make a difference? What if you had a year? Ten years? Fifty years? a hundred years?
It’s a lot to think about, actually. As you research all the problems in the world, it can be overwhelming. But you will eventually settle on the one cause that you are personally most passionate about, and a path that allows you to help to the best of your particular ability. Now, you feel purposeful and excited.
