{"id":14112,"date":"2022-11-07T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=14112"},"modified":"2022-11-08T08:59:16","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T14:59:16","slug":"money-does-not-equal-happiness-for-the-wealthhy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/editorials\/money-does-not-equal-happiness-for-the-wealthhy\/","title":{"rendered":"Money \u2260 happiness: Why the wealthy feel the most empty of us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wealthy elite are miserable at work, or so the New York Times alleges in \u201cThe Future of Work: Wealthy, Successful, and Miserable<\/a>.\u201d My knee-jerk reaction was \u201cboo hoo\u201d – Of course, you\u2019ll be miserable if you only work for yourself, a lesson that should have been easily learned and fixed in your 20s.<\/p>\n

The NYT’s example was a wealthy investment banker who earned 1.2 million. It\u2019s extremely hard to find pity for someone who earned that much in a thankless job. And the article was less about the future of work and more about how to find job satisfaction. However, everyone should understand that in order to be happy in a job, you must do something that fulfills you<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fulfillment comes in a variety of forms. It is fulfilling to help others while working with colleagues you respect.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the job description itself doesn\u2019t lead to fulfillment but the way you work does. For example, I worked for two years as a personal injury paralegal helping car accident victims. If that doesn\u2019t make you cringe, this will: I managed well over 100 cases, a very demanding caseload, and was also the Office Manager. Tragedy literally walked into the door and called every day. I adored the job \u2013 it was hands down the best I\u2019d ever had. Why? It was intense, varied, and immensely fulfilling because I made a difference every day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I helped people get their life back and fought against big insurance companies who were screwing people out of their deserved recovery. As a victim of a no-fault car accident myself four years ago, I was on a crusade and loved it.<\/p>\n

The reasons I left were a complicated mix of work\/life balance issues, but primarily because my husband became deathly ill unexpectedly and I chose him and his life over the job I loved. And I don\u2019t regret it – although I still miss that job that had changed my life for the better (despite being underpaid).<\/p>\n

In addition to doing something I believed in, part of what made the job great was autonomy, something the NYT article alludes to.<\/p>\n

Autonomy to do the job the way you see fit is a precious thing. But it\u2019s also about finding purpose within yourself to do the job.<\/p>\n

I was able to bring a sense of purpose to the job description, something everyone should be doing. It\u2019s more about finding your \u201cwhy,\u201d your reason for being there every day.<\/p>\n

And your “why” must be about more than earning a paycheck. No matter how large it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high salary can be an exciting perk but records show the wealthy truly aren’t happy. You need to have a ‘why’ to live a fulfilling life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8141,"featured_media":19412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[927,1234],"class_list":["post-14112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","tag-career","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/Person-holding-money.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14112"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19809,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14112\/revisions\/19809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}