<p>So once you reach that point, money is not as rewarding as when you had less. Wouldn’t that mean people should switch gears at that point and find meaning in something else to feel fulfilled?</p>
<p>The search for meaning.</p>
<p>Deborah T, what have you found?</p>
<p>Hopefully not in Maseratis or DuJour magazines. Or Ivyies, or jobs at JPMorgans’s. A well known author was on TV the other day. He quipped that Ivies and Wall Street jobs intrigue people who doesn’t know what to do with their life. They get validated from the wow’s and a lot of money they get. He himself worked in Goldman Sachs.</p>
<p>One thing that popped into my mind is Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk. Many here have probably already watched the video. It’s popular. Have to be willing to get our toes wet and risk failure.</p>
<p>One thing I’ve found is that action is key. Start the ball rolling. An object in motion tends to remain in motion. I never thought I would be a runner. BC suggested Couch to 5K, and I went out and tried it, not knowing if I’d make it past the first workout. I did. :)</p>
<p>Meaning in fitness?! That’s not for me. I am fit but I can’t live to be physically fit. It’s the other way around for me. I stay fit to live.</p>
<p>". He quipped that Ivies and Wall Street jobs intrigue people who doesn’t know what to do with their life."</p>
<p>That is a little ridiculous.</p>
<p>Failure is ok. I don’t understand this fear of failure.</p>
<p>Igloo, it was an example of something that added meaning to <em>my</em> life. The point was about starting somewhere, with something that interests you.</p>
<p>Life is a series of events similar to sporting events. We move from event to event. Some events are better than others.</p>
<p>Go play!</p>
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<p>What do you mean “should”? “Should” according to whom?</p>
<p>According to themselves. Money is not fulfilling them since their monetary needs are met. That is assuming our conjecture is correct. </p>
<p>So once you reach that point, money is not as rewarding as when you had less. Wouldn’t that mean people should switch gears at that point and find meaning in something else to feel fulfilled?</p>
<p>I think it probably depends what is motivating you to make money in the first place.
Is it because you are competitive and enjoy reachng and achieving that goal?
Are you nervous about being without, so you accumulate more than you need, just in case?
Or do you just really enjoy working and the byproduct happens to be earning you a lot if money?
If you’ve reached a place where you feel you need something more, but you don’t know what, you might think about what you value, and if where you spend your time actually reflects those values.</p>
<p>If you value spending time with your family/ community activities, but are spending 60 hrs+ a week at work, you might want to rethink that.</p>
<p>The super rich billionaires (the 0.01%) are pulling away from the merely very rich multi millionaires (the 0.1%)
<a href=“http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/business/another-widening-gap-the-haves-vs-the-have-mores.html?_r=0&referrer=”>http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/business/another-widening-gap-the-haves-vs-the-have-mores.html?_r=0&referrer=</a>
</p>
<p>Amazing that these groups get lumped together with the bottom of the 1%: dual working professional income.</p>
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<p>But that comes back to the point at the beginning – while the top 1% have done well financially, they can “feel poor” if they look at the top 0.1% and 0.01% who have done much better financially.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind having a friend who would give me a ride in their megayacht.</p>
<p>UCBalumnus, what I find interesting is that 95 percent of the population is seeing their wealth stagnating or declining ovet the last several years.</p>
<p>What is your thinking on that?</p>
<p>To the extent that economic mobility appears to be decreasing, that can be undesirable overall, due to the possibility of:</p>
<ul>
<li>People being attracted to extremist politics as people lose hope of working up within the system.</li>
<li>Lower overall economic output as less mobility means that human capital is allocated more inefficiently.</li>
<li>Increased social segregation.</li>
<li>Increased crime.</li>
</ul>
<p>I agree with you and keeping with the theme of the thread, do you think some of the top 5 percent, who see what is happening to the bottom 95 percent, may have a little angst about their own situations?</p>
<p>Do you mean narrowly, in terms of the possibility of themselves or their kids being downward mobile and therefore being unable to afford their current lifestyles in the near future, or broadly, in terms of the overall societal environmental changes that may happen in the future (the kind described in reply #737)?</p>