Enough?

This was an interesting tidbit from A Learning A Day:

“I was thinking about an anecdote from a book by late Vanguard founder John Bogle. This was an exchange Bogle witnessed at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island in New York.

The late novelist Kurt Vonnegut informed his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history.

Heller responded – “Yes, but I have something he will never have…enough.”

That’s a really good insight. Appetites are endless for humans. It takes discipline to say enough whether we are talking about money, power, food, sex, etc. We are not wired to have this much abundance. As a result, we have to fight our biology to say enough is enough.

Consumerism is a symptom of a much greater problem. We are often using it as a way to escape so we don’t need to face reality. As the saying goes, “Just because you’re rich, doesn’t mean you are wealthy.” We all have met someone who seems to do well financially but is bankrupt in other facets of their life.