Is being Rich the same as being Wealthy?
We walk past Big houses and Luxury Cars and think how great it’d be to own these things. We immediately imagine ourselves sitting in the Grand Living room or at the steering.
However, let me describe the one fault that our modern capitalistic society brandishes so brazenly. The fault is always comparing with the next level.
Everyone wants to be rich and own a Ferrari or any other $100k car or a grand mansion. In reality most of the time, they don’t really want to use these liabilities as much as they want to show them to their friends, families, or anyone else. Most of the time people own expensive things to see the look on other person’s face wondering how rich you are.
BUT
are they really thinking about you when they see a Mercedes or Ferrari pulling beside their Toyota? Most people won’t even take a look at your face, the only thing they’ll think is what it’d be like when or if they could own those wheels.
The lesson being, it is you, who is the proudest of your possessions.
You may seem RICH, however, your showing off is bleeding out your wealth. Every $100K car is another 100 thousand dollars less wealth that you own.
as Morgan Houssel beautifully explains in his book [ Psychology of Money],
”Wealth is the nice cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The watches not worn, the clothes forgone and the first-class upgrade declined. Wealth is financial assets that haven’t yet been converted into the stuff you see”
to simply put it, Wealth is hidden. It is the income not spent. But the problem with us is that we want to be a millionaire but we don’t actually know what we’ll do when we become one.
The only takeaway from this article is to know that being a millionaire does not mean to spend a million dollars.
