No, You Don’t Deserve to be Rich

I want you to say this out loud:
“I deserve meaning”

Not, “I deserve to be rich.” Not even, “I deserve to be happy.”

No one deserves to be wealthy. The universe owes you nothing, despite the popularity of manifesting. Furthermore, research has increasingly shown that boosts in income may affect self-report of life satisfaction, but it actually does not improve emotional well-being beyond a certain point.

So, chasing money certainly won’t result in fulfillment (Sorry!). Nor do I believe that you can pursue happiness. Jennifer Aaker, a social psychologist and the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, has discovered in her research that the more you chase happiness, the less likely you are to achieve it.

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”
– Viktor E. Frankl

Instead, I believe that lasting happiness is actually a byproduct of having meaning in your life. You should discover what fulfills you, and what gives your daily life meaning. You do deserve that. I believe that we all do.

Unfortunately, we often get into a habit of settling. We become comfortable with the routine of our lives. We stay in unhappy relationships. We stick with a job that no longer fulfills us.

“70% of U.S. Workers Not Engaged at Work”
– Gallup State of the American Workplace report

But, it pays the bills and you’re making good money. Maybe more money than you thought you’d ever make.

You may have thought that it’s ok if your job doesn’t fulfill you, as long as you’re doing well. You can use all of that money to buy happiness.

“He who dies with the most toys wins”
– Malcolm S. Forbes

I know that I have heard variations of this many times in my lifetime.

I was told: Don’t expect that your job will make you happy. Buy nice things and that will make you happy. Fulfillment? You can deal with that later, during your retirement.

But, they were wrong.

During the latter half of the 20+ years of my corporate career, I often had people on my teams that were much younger than me. I used to find it somewhat amusing that they wanted their work to mean something. You have to remember that this was a novel concept to a Gen-Xer. I remember telling them that the point was to improve the product metrics and drive the revenue numbers. That was the “meaning” of their project.