When is Wealth not enough?

In a thought-provoking book by Bill Perkins, ‘Die with Zero’, the author states the case that it makes little sense to die with money left in the bank account. He urges the reader to devise a plan to spend the money they have worked hard for during the years which they can get the most enjoyment out of their money.

An illustration Mr. Perkins provides is traveling. Will you derive as much fulfilment and joy out of traveling for a long time, being able to deal with layovers and jetlag, when you are age 70 as you would have at age 45? The answer is probably not. Don’t get me wrong, this does not infer that you will not derive any pleasure traveling at age 70. The equation we are trying to solve is for the maximum life fulfilment. At age 45 traveling will be more pleasurable, you will be able to physically do more things and create everlasting ‘memory dividends’ as phrased by the author.

An interesting trifecta to balance between in order to reach the goal of maximum life fulfilment, also in the book, is between wealth, health and time availability (which I am going to adjust slightly to autonomy). Each of these three aspects, when taken to the extreme, will influence the life fulfilment in negative way.

Take a situation where you have all the wealth in the world. Money is not a problem that keeps you awake at night. But, you have poor health. You physically can’t move freely, or perhaps have an illness crippling your quality of life. What does wealth mean if you can’t enjoy it? Perhaps you are blessed with good health as well, but you have no autonomy. You are expected to work 18 hours a day for six or seven days a week. The probability is that your health is not good in such a scenario, but even if it is, and you can’t enjoy your fortunate wealth and health combination, what is the use?

We spend an inordinate amount of time, in my profession especially and in many others, emphasizing the wealth aspect without even considering the aspect of health or autonomy, the ability to actually enjoy what you work for.

Health is probably the one aspect that needs to be present to maximise your life fulfilment and secondly that could and should be focused on more. Very few can proclaim that their exercise, nutrition and sleep habits are of such nature that there is no room for improvement. You have to ask what an extra hour of work will add to your futures self versus an hour of exercise that will benefit present and future you.

Caveat, every person has a unique situation, and it is truly unique as nobody is in the situation you are in. Nobody. And we can’t even begin to try and cover or comprehend all the possible scenarios.

What we can and should do is to take time in order to plan what a truly fulfilled life will look like. Discover what it is to balance wealth creation pursuits with health protection actions in the quest to achieve autonomy so that we can live extra ordinary lives.

Protect health. Grow wealth