Meaningful Returns

Comparison is the thief of joy. I would highly recommend not engaging in it.

But in the event that you find yourself looking at peers and asking, “Where does all the money come from?” I guess I have a couple of things to say:

1. Many people heavily subsidize their lifestyle with debt. This is a terrible decision, but it also means they are driving nicer cars and living in twice the house that you are. The problem is, you can’t really know from the outside whether the person is heavily subsidizing their lifestyle with debt, which is one reason why engaging in comparison is dumb to begin with.
2. Most people are not very generous with their money on a relative basis. So if you are, I mean, you might make the same exact money as your peer but you could be taking home 5, 10, 15% less. It’s probably easier to pick out generous people than it is to sniff out heavily levered people, but I still wouldn’t suggest it at all. Plus, even if you figure out someone isn’t as generous as you, judging them for it feels…not in the spirit of generosity?
3. Some people have family money. These people also did not control what families they were born into. This doesn’t feel like a particularly healthy thing to resent someone for.

I could go on and on. The point is, you can always find reasons to self-justify your financial position when you see peers with seemingly endless streams of money, but doing so will only make you angry.

Don’t be angry.