The Pursuit Of Wealth Is The Pursuit of Freedom
The pursuit of wealth is not the pursuit of material goods. You don’t need sports cars, luxury clothes, yachts, or a $10,000 watch. I’m sure those could be fun, for a while.
But ultimately, the lasting result of real wealth boils down to this: freedom of your time. It’s the freedom to live your life on your own schedule and your own agenda, pursuing passions and creative pursuits that light you up.
The pursuit of wealth is the pursuit of freedom. Build wealth to buy freedom.
The Journey Begins With Belief.
Most people want to be wealthy but don’t believe they can actually make the money to get there. This cognitive dissonance - wanting something that you believe you can’t have - has to be resolved in some way. Either the belief system needs to change, or the want needs to change.
Usually, it’s the want that changes. People convince themselves that they don’t want to be rich, warping their view of money (and those who have it) in the process. The accumulation of wealth becomes something to be scorned, not celebrated.
Naval Ravikant frames this cognitive dissonance as status vs. wealth. In a blog post on his website called Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status, Naval writes:
“Many [people] deep down believe that they can’t make it. They don’t want any wealth creation to happen. So, they virtue signal by attacking the whole enterprise by saying, ‘Well, making money is evil. You shouldn’t do it.’ But they’re actually playing the other game, which is the status game. They’re trying to be high status in the eyes of other people watching by saying, ‘Well, I don’t need money. We don’t want money.’”
Many people who take on this attitude either 1) don’t believe they can achieve financial freedom, or 2) regret that they never tried.
Most People Scorn The Rich.
For much of my life, I was in this camp. Growing up, wealth wasn’t something to aspire to. It was something to scorn. The word “rich” was a dirty word. It was reserved for old, white men who had cheated their way to the top.
I grew up in a small town. I didn’t know anyone wealthy. My relationship with those who had money was formed through mainstream media, often portraying the rich as frauds.
In my mind, the only way to get rich was to cheat. The whole stock market was corrupt, like the casino where the odds are stacked against you. The average person can’t win and there’s no point in trying. And what chance did I have even if I wanted it? I didn’t know the first thing about getting rich. Wall Street and Silicon Valley were thousands of miles away in either direction.
This mentality stuck with me after university and into my first few years of full-time work. And then something changed.
Everything Changes When Wealth Becomes Freedom.
I was introduced to Warren Buffett. To Charlie Munger. To Naval Ravikant. And I learned what wealth creation was really about: freedom.
The freedom to do what you want with the time you have left. Naval says it best:
“The reason you want wealth is because it buys you your freedom. So, you don’t have to wear a tie like a collar around your neck. So, you don’t have to wake up at 7:00 AM, and rush to work, and sit in commute traffic. So, you don’t have to waste away your entire life grinding all your productive hours away into a soulless job that doesn’t fulfill you.”
Freedom is what we all want. It allows you to wake up when you feel like it. To take the dog out for a walk when you feel like it. To vacation with your lover when you feel like it. To really enjoy each moment of life is it passes in front of your eyes. That’s not something to be scorned. It’s something to be celebrated.
Warren tap dances to work at the age of 90. Charlie continues to share his wisdom at 97. Naval, who is younger in his mid-40s, floats through his days doing exactly what he wants to do when he wants to do it. All three of them use their freedom to create the life they want.
In an interview with Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project podcast, Naval says:
“I don’t have a typical day, nor do I want a typical day. There are days where I just work completely from home. There are days that I don’t work. I’m actually even trying to get rid of this concept of having to be in a specific place at a specific time. All I care about is am I doing what I want to do and am I being productive and am I happy.”
Naval’s not spending his money on fancy sports cars and new yachts. He’s using his wealth to buy time, which he then uses to create meaning.
The Pursuit of Freedom Is Worth It.
When you redefine the pursuit of wealth as the pursuit of freedom, you give yourself permission to authentically want it. It’s no longer a dirty wish. It becomes a beautiful journey full of meaning with the simple goal of taking full advantage of the limited time we all have on earth.
And when you start seeing wealth as freedom, something incredible happens. You begin to believe you can actually do it. And you start to read. You start to learn. You start to invest. You start to write. You start to make videos. You start to find asymmetric opportunities. And you start to make money.
Once you come to understand that the pursuit of wealth is the pursuit of freedom, everything changes. Wealth becomes a slowly sipped cup of coffee. A meal with your parents. A walk in the park.
What more could you want than the freedom to do what you like, when you like?
That’s what wealth is. And that’s why it’s worth pursuing.
Keep going.
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SOURCES:
Here is Naval’s article on seeking wealth, not status or money: https://nav.al/seek-wealth
Naval Ravikant on the The Knowledge Project Podcast with Shane Parrish.