Prakhar Gupta@prvkhvr
Hi, notes from a guy who was raised by a very successful father, and grew up around friends with very successful fathers:
1. Its true, life with money can be boring. Although my father never bought us anything but economy (he insisted we buy luxury with our own money— more on this in a little bit) he did take us around the world. The world at large is not as exciting to me as to someone who hasnt seen it. For me the world was a factt of life as a child, never an achievement of life as an adult.
2. You dont need to own cars, watches, and big houses to be done with cars, watches and big houses. One is sufficient to show you how meaningless the other things are. What is meaningful post-money is family, purpose and the adventure of your life. The toys are mere jewellery pieces. Exciting for a short while, empty in the long run. My father, who is more in Viraj’s category than I am, would agree. But you only realise it after you can have the cars, watches and resorts to realise they were toys you used as baits to manipulate your own behaviour.
3. Despite having money, all my friends crave status. They know they live on borrowed status from their fathers and it haunts them. You see very capable men under rate themselves because they never escape their fathers’ shadows. They go to clubs, double down on cars and brands, and juice their Instagrams and dating profiles just so they can feel the hit of status. Alas, all those things are empty and cause feelings of more impotence for them in the long run.
4. Life with money is not boring. I have a slight disagreement with Viraj here. Actually, the world is your oyster. You can do ANYTHING without fear of going bust or broke. Thats a super power and frankly, no person in the world should worry about economic insufficiency while chasing their uniqueness. This privilege should be socialised, and we should be careful not to glorify poverty and be careful about which struggles we choose to glorify. However, most people with money are more fearful of losing that money than excited about making their own money. This causes a bigger problem, something far more serious that boredom— the feeling of impotence.
5. The real problem of generational wealth is that kids grow up in an economic superstructure where nothing they do matters. They work in family establishments, make no real decisions, have no real impact, hate their own fortunes for being ‘unexciting’, borrow status from their fathers that doesnt really work, get into power politics with their own father and siblings. Its not that everything is boring, its that nothing is meaningful.
6. A side note about inter generational wealth building: my father would say this often to me “i am the son of a poor father, you are the son of a rich father. Please use my life’s sacrifice to see farther than I do”. And I guess, what I did learn is that Buddha needed to be a prince to see how ‘spiritually empty’ wealth is. This is not to say wealth is not desirable, but that true joy is not in the dopamine hits of a new toy. Its in setting out on your own adventure, and bringing pride and victory to people that love you. Or at least this is how far i see. Buddha saw even further. But then he was the son of a king, and I of a lawyer.
7. My father realised through his lifetime, as many people who make money in their lifetime do, that the resorts and flights are not going to make you happy. They may bring temporary pleasure, but joy is found in other things. Joy is found in meaning. And I was somewhat born with that knowledge. THAT is a privilege- to be set free to chase your own dreams, bound neither by your limitations nor by your desires.
Hope that helps.
