27 Mar 2025 “It Doesn’t Go Away With Money”
As far as I can tell, wealth, by itself, is a bit of a nothingburger. But it isn’t by itself, because nothing ever is. If anything, in a culture like ours that celebrates money and excess to an alarming extent, there appears to be a propensity for wealth to do the thing that some people are afraid AI will do, which is take over our lives.
Rembrandt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parable_of_the_Rich_Fool_(Rembrandt)
What I mean, what I find in my own life at least, is that accumulating wealth seems to have a very direct causal relationship with my desire to be omnipotent and omniscient. Of course, I don’t say I want to be those things, because that would be really weird—who says out loud that they want to play God?—but many of my most consequential habits seem to be about taking control. The cars we drive, the house we live in, the food we buy, what we pay to fix things or make things nicer, the amount of time I spend at the gym, the vacations we take—they all tend toward being sure of myself, and preventing all manner of bad possible outcomes.
But this sense of control is all one big mirage, isn’t it? Sure, wealth can get you some measure of safety, and safety is fine and good up to a point. But wealth can’t protect you from substance abuse or alcohol dependency. Wealth can’t make your relationship with your kids or your spouse or your siblings what you yearn for it to be. Wealth can’t buy you rest (remember, rest and leisure are not the same!). Wealth can’t prevent sickness in your own body or the bodies of those you love. The world is chaotic, and random bad things happen to people with absolutely zero regard for their balance sheets.
Just this week a great example of this was born out in a story about Joe Ingles, the veteran Australian basketball player for the Minnesota Timberwolves. His son Jacob, who is autistic, got to see him play for the first time ever, and afterward Ingles had some great commentary about his family and walking through life with his son and the challenges he faces. The whole video is worth a watch, but this was my favorite bit:
“The s—‘s real. It doesn’t matter who you are or the lifestyle or the money…It doesn’t go away with money.”
Sure, he’s able to afford therapies for his son that others couldn’t. He’s making over $3m this year! But that doesn’t change the underlying reality, which is seeing someone you dearly love suffer. In fact, the title of this brief could have just been “Wealth Won’t Prevent Suffering,” but then none of us would have clicked on it.
Wealth is a tricky thing, is maybe what I’m trying to get at, and not only in this illusory sense of control it provides. Wealth is rarely what it seems, and we who are wealthy would do well to be wary of what it’s doing when we aren’t paying attention. If we don’t take care, I think it can start to make us feel invincible, rather than present. Powerful, rather than resilient. Lauded, rather than loved. Smart, rather than wise. Philanthropic, rather than charitable. Seen, rather than known. Anxious, rather than content.
But we don’t need to be encumbered by wealth! We can be more free with it—much more free with it!—for the good of others. We can be less identified by it, by living quiet, simple lives. We can take ourselves less seriously and live with more joy. We can be less anxious about the big world and more present to our neighbors. We can even spend some time thinking through the question: “Who is my neighbor?”
Look, I know this is sort of strange coming from a place called Beacon Wealthcare. But maybe part of “wealth care” is the care we take not to let our wealth rule over us. Wouldn’t that be something?
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