It could be worse. You could be a millionaire, have sacrificed good years of your life and your health, and realise that happiness was achievable on a shoestring all along.
We’re sold a lie from the get-go, a lovely orange carrot dangling just in front of us. Very occasionally a lucky donkey catches the carrot, because the stick broke or somesuch - but the carrot is made of wood.
This is why we have billionaires. They’re the fools who didn’t know when to quit, chewing on wooden carrot after wooden carrot, insisting they’re delicious. More and more and more and never ever enough - because material wealth is good for satisfying your fundamental needs, but once it’s done that, the marginal utility diminishes rapidly, and you derive limited satisfaction from it.
As you say, be ok with you. Be happy in this moment and that moment, however it comes - being alive is enough - ask any cancer patient.
The handful of (tech) billionaires I’ve met all seemed to genuinely enjoy the work that made them rich. People have different utility functions (which is a good thing!)
We’re sold a lie from the get-go, a lovely orange carrot dangling just in front of us. Very occasionally a lucky donkey catches the carrot, because the stick broke or somesuch - but the carrot is made of wood.
This is why we have billionaires. They’re the fools who didn’t know when to quit, chewing on wooden carrot after wooden carrot, insisting they’re delicious. More and more and more and never ever enough - because material wealth is good for satisfying your fundamental needs, but once it’s done that, the marginal utility diminishes rapidly, and you derive limited satisfaction from it.
As you say, be ok with you. Be happy in this moment and that moment, however it comes - being alive is enough - ask any cancer patient.