Morgan Housel

So I'm not saying this is even a bad thing.

It's just a real thing.

But we want to think that what people admire us for is our wealth.

And 90% of the time, if you run through the people who are most meaningful to you in your life, they don't value you for your wealth.

And the thing that they might value for has nothing to do with money.

My kids don't care in the slightest about

Whether my income went up last year, what our net worth is.

They care that I listen to them and that I play football with them in the driveway and that I read books to them and that I'm a good father.

I have another friend, the same friend who gave me the tour of his very large house that was mostly not used, who said, sometimes I have days where I wish my dad was just a normal guy who drove a Subaru.

that the money was actually getting away.

It was getting in the way.

Yes.

The money was getting in the way of his ability to just be a normal, good dad.

And when you have that much money, it was the center of everything that they did in life, was like, how do we use our money for philanthropy and the lifestyle that we live?

And he's like, sometimes I just want my dad to just go out and play baseball with me, to be a normal guy.

I think that's true for a lot of things in life.

If you've known someone who's dealt with infertility, they will do anything to have a kid.

They would chop off their arms, do anything to have a baby.

If you know people who have newborns, they would do anything to sleep tonight.

They would chop off their arms for this kid to shut up and let me sleep.