Why do/should we chase wealth?

This is a question that has been on my mind for a long time. I will preface this with saying I do not quite believe there is a right or wrong thing to chase in life. Nor do I think that chasing wealth is a bad thing. In fact I think a lot of people chase meaningless and stupid shit and most would be better off chasing wealth. This article does not have the answer for why we chase wealth, you’ll have to find that elsewhere. The purpose of this article is to help me understand why people do this (myself included) and in turn hopefully bring you some valuable insights along the way.

I’ll start with a quote by someone whose words I really admire. In a string of tweets Naval Ravikant laid out ‘How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)’. This thread is a truly powerful and enlightening way to not only look at getting rich, but also amassing wealth. It’s great and I highly recommend you check it out. One of the things that really struck me was his last tweet in the thread.

“When you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize that it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. But that’s for another day.”

Now it’s important to understand how we are thinking about wealth here. Naval states in his first tweet of the thread that it is important to seek wealth, not money or status. The differences in the three are laid out below.

“Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.”

I think that when people think about those who are chasing wealth they can be viewed as greedy, or selfish, or unhappy. I don’t necessarily believe that to be the case.

To give you some background, going back to my childhood I was raised primarily amongst Eastern European immigrant & refugee families. Most of these families had struggled mightily to get to America in order to escape poverty, oppression, war, and many other hardships. A direct cause of their struggle was an impassioned drive to create a better life for their children. For most of these families, breaking into the middle class and providing their children with a means to get a college degree and achieve a high-paying job was always the shining goal. They were always working towards a better future for their children.

I believe that the root of my questioning about why we chase wealth begins here. When looking at how most of these families were able to eventually achieve their goals it was not solely due to their own singular accomplishments. Most of them wouldn’t have been able to do it without the community that they themselves had built. Knowingly or unknowingly they had developed a system that supported one another and helped everyone grow. From rotating who’s going to pick up the children from school so that someone can put in an extra shift at work, to helping with things like cooking meals for the kids, babysitting, so on and so forth.

Now, before jumping further into my background, I want to take a moment to step aside and challenge you to think about how I view children of families in my case specifically. I believe this will help frame my thought process on understanding why we chase wealth. Let’s go back to our definition of wealth. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. One of the greatest forms of wealth a parent can strive to achieve is making sure that their most important and valuable asset, their children, are making a great earning while they are sleeping. This doesn’t mean they are making money from their children, nor are children some liquid item that you can just exchange at the bank (though I know a few parents who might enjoy that idea). It means that your greatest asset, your children, are doing better than you. Above all else, for most parents this means their children have security.

Security: the state of being free from danger or threat

Now that we’ve defined children as a parents most valuable asset, let’s go back to my childhood background now. (This all ties in pretty well I promise).

This now becomes a story about a collective of people who are chasing wealth in the form of providing a better future for their children. They don’t fall privy to what Naval had said not to chase, which is being rich and having status. They take it a step further and are chasing wealth in arguably one of its purist forms. Knowingly or unknowingly.

When I look at what pushed them toward chasing wealth it’s a combination of a few foundational things.

• Experiences
• Circumstance
• Their desire to grow an asset
• Purpose

Their experiences put them in situations where they understood what they didn’t want their life, or their children’s life to be like. Their circumstance at the time didn’t allow for them to provide a better life for their children so they had to work to change that. They had a desire to grow their most valuable asset. Their purpose then became to invest as much resources into their children and create a funnel of money through which they would be able to do so. This meant working multiple jobs, long hours, and relying on their community to enable them to do so. They knew this type of sacrifice wasn’t sustainable so they wanted their children, in return, to have better opportunities to create wealth.

Now I think the only one you have to have to chase wealth is a desire to grow an asset. However, building a foundation as to why you are chasing wealth can help bring you direction. Especially if you believe wealth is not an ideal goal to pursue in life.

Draw upon your experiences if you can. Look at your current circumstances. Do you want to change them? What assets do you want to grow or build? What is your purpose in doing so? If any of those can be helped by chasing wealth I believe that it is a worth while effort.

Why? Well looking back at my story what did I see through different families chasing wealth?

They had to build communities to make sure that they were able to provide the right opportunities for their children. That meant meeting new people, working together, socializing, creating new experiences.

They were focused on improving their own skills and circumstances so that they could help their assets grow. This meant self improvement, learning new skills, and building.

They invested in their assets and in turn saw them grow into something bigger than they could ever create individually. This can bring joy, purpose, and fulfillment.

The point in all of this seems to be that chasing wealth with the right mindset can lead to a truly self-fulfilling journey.

Naval did say that when you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize that it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. While wealth may not be what you were seeking, it does bring about a journey. If you’re seeking a journey that enables you to grow, socialize, invest in yourself and others, well then chasing wealth isn’t a bad place to start.