Wealth Dysmorphic Disorder
Wealth Dysmorphic Disorder
My mind plays tricks on me. There is no doubt about it. I noticed it first in my journey to lose weight. I was chubby. Not obese. Not fat. I just had a littler extra weight. A few years back I discovered tracking. And the weight came off. Ten pounds. Twenty pounds. Twenty five pounds. I would marvel at the way my body looked in the mirror. Until I didn’t. At some pointy my mind became so accustomed to my new body that It no longer felt new anymore. It fell, well, regular. I began to see the bulges at the waist and the imperfections of the abdomen. Looking in the mirror, I no longer looked thin to myself anymore. I looked a little pudgy. Kind of like before I lost weight. A strange phenomenon for sure. Until I realized that it was pervasive in other parts of my life. There is a analogous wealth dyspmorphic disorder that many of us face also.
Our riches no longer feel like they are making us rich anymore.
It’s The Climb
The problem with wealth is it is often something not tangible. My net worth may be climbing, and yet I look no different. In everyday life, there may be no external appearance that anything has changed (especially for stealth wealth practitioners). There is no proof except numbers on a ledger sheet.
And this is all seems so ephemeral.
Looking back. Most of us realize that the joy was in the climb. The overcoming desperation, setting a plan, and making progress is what happiness actually looks like.
Once a goal is reached, there is an annoying short time before the new state becomes the norm. Then, all the sudden, just like my bulging abdomen, all those millions in the bank don’t really seem like that much. The wealth dysmorphic disorder kicks in and your mind starts to play tricks on you.
Believe it or not, you crave the climb more than the destination. And so you create new, more audacious goals.
Reassessment
Maybe this is not such a bad thing. The wealth dysmorphic disorder could logically lead to reassessment, and could indeed be more profitable in the end. The peak can be re calibrated and new goals set. Maybe seven figures is not enough, and one should reach for eight figures.
Certainly Rome would have never been built if the early occupants had been happy remaining a small trade town. Someone has to have the big unobtainable dreams to make the world go round.
What is left when one stops striving?
Enough
What we are really arguing about here is enough. Is there such thing as enough? The wealth dysmorphic disorder would tell you no. Just like any good treadmill, once you reach a steady state, the only way forward is to move a little faster. Run a little harder.
Yet, there still is this idea of happiness or at least contentedness. Being continually in a race to be better or produce more doesn’t seem like a very comfortable long term existence to me.
Does it to you?
Final Thoughts
The wealth dysmorphic disorder is the distortion of one’s feelings about wealth once a goal is attained. Like so many of the treadmills in our life, it is often hard to hop off once we are running at full speed.
Reaching financial peace, however, requires all of us to come up with a definition of enough and move on.
Just like when I look in the mirror. Although my eye may see all the imperfections, my mind is smart enough to realize that I am far healthier than previously.
And that should really be the only point. Shouldn’t it?
Well said. I worked past the point of “enough” for me because it took a couple of years of discomfort at my previously wonderfully comfortable career to decide it was over. And since then I’ve turned down several job offers to get back into the 9 to 5 though I was not looking for them. I think I knew I was OK with my new life when I turned down an offer that was so large in comparison to my previous compensation that it would have allowed me to triple my net worth in five or six years had I accepted it. It literally would have paid me ten times what I made in my best year had it worked out OK, which it probably would have. But is three times “enough” really worth anything, especially when enough is twice what I’ll ever spend? I decided it wasn’t, and the decision took about 15 seconds.
It’s the lottery test. You passed.
Can’t wait till you loose the W2 and all the protection it provides. That’s when the rubber meets the road and all the projections and treadmills either work or they don’t and all that W2 security dissolves. The gold standard of “enough” is when you actually start deflation and SOR becomes real instead of conceptual. Emotionally accumulation is like any dopamine based addiction. Just how much bourbon is enough? The answer is it’s never enough, it’s an addiction. What was that old song “hooked on a feeling, high on believin’…”
I still find value in work abopve and beyond the cash flow. We will see if that continues.
I can’t imagine you chubby Doc. But you’d probably say the same of me and I was more than chubby, I was borderline obese. I reach “enough” on weight loss for sure, but I agree about other things. I’m always trying to out-do my running PR’s and other things. When is enough? When mother nature tells me I’ve hit the wall…..
I’m trying to find the balance. But for aggressive Type A personalities it’s tough.
This is the big secret of financial independence. It turns out to not be about money but more about seeking contentedness and meaning right? There has been plenty of research showing that we acclimate to our new wealth quickly and there has also been research suggesting that above $75K annual household income in the US doesn’t really result in any more happiness. I think that financial independence is a realistic number together with a personal change in how you make decisions. Also, I still see pudge when I look in the mirror but I’m working on it 😉
We should just get rid of mirrors!
Found you through Physician on Fire. First time reader. Great post. I’m familiar with this concept as “hedonic adaptation” as it pertains to lifestyle creep. Great insight to see that it applies equally to our accumulated funds as it does to our accumulated possessions. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the question is, “How much is enough?” . . . but I wish you would have dived deeper!
Thanks Matt.Perhaps these posts will help:
https://diversefi.com/2018/09/22/the-complicity-of-enough-2/
https://diversefi.com/2018/04/24/loss-aversion-and-the-fallacy-of-enough/
Thanks for the curated content – exactly what I was looking for.
I am a physician, FI after 13 years. Feeling like I had “enough” money and enough of emergency medicine, we decided that life is too short not to try something epic. Seven months ago we left Canada with our four boys and started backpacking around the world. One of many life lessons we’ve been learning along the way is the vast difference in how “enough” is defined in different cultures. It largely depends on your frame of reference – who you are (usually unconsciously) comparing yourself to. Most of world would look at the financial goals of North American physicians with utter disbelief – how could anyone think they need that much money to be happy? I think this should give us pause to see if we really have a good answer.
Excellent writing. Even better ideas. You have a new follower.
Thanks Matt. Sounds like you really made a positive life change!
“you crave the climb more than the destination. And so you create new, more audacious goals.”
>I struggle with this a lot. I’ve expedienced anguish after running a personal best time because I felt that an even faster time had been within reach. I’ve summitted mountains only to feel a sense of loss on the way back down and wonder ‘what next?” now that goal was behind me. The goal I had coveted was achieved and now was gone. I was in immediate need of a new goal.
The targets are met, the goals become ever more audacious. I crave ‘the climb’, but do I enjoy it? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just like an addict looking for the next fix of my drug of choice, achievement.
“Reaching financial peace, however, requires all of us to come up with a definition of enough and move on.”
>In forming my definition of ‘enough’ I feel myself falling into the traps of my flawed character once again. I stretch for a definition of ‘enough’ so lofty that it is simply another audacious goal in disguise. Once reached, I fear I’ll be unable to move on but will instead move the goal posts again and start to stretch once more.
I think I’ll only be able to form a true definition of enough once I accept / realise that I am enough as I am and stop trying to transform into something / someone else.
HH
I like this: “I think I’ll only be able to form a true definition of enough once I accept / realise that I am enough as I am and stop trying to transform into something / someone else.”