I'll have what he's having

This week, I listened to Morgan Housel’s ‘The Psychology of Money’. It’s an incredibly popular book (4 million copies sold), and to my surprise, it’s equally good. It is simple and opinionated, and full of stories. I loved it and finished it in a couple of sittings.

The book aims at the topic of money, but mostly circles around the human behavior with regards to money. It explains what people do or aspire to do with their money and why. One such behavior is coined as ‘Man in the Car Paradox’.

When you see someone in a fancy car, you may think how cool would it be to own that car. You may think that people would look up to you, would admire and respect you. But the paradox here is that you do not give a second glance at the person who just got out of that car. You’re just interested in the car. You’re imagining yourself in the driver’s seat.

So if you manage to buy that car, would people think you’re cool? No. Just like you, they’d rather want to have the car in an attempt to look cool themselves.

That remains true for everything you’re envious about. Be it extravagant holidays, or a prestigious job, or someone’s social status, anything that you feel would make you likable simply does not. In other words, you cannot buy respect or admiration with money. Even though many people try to.

Respect comes from humility and empathy and graciousness. It is a result of your behavior, how helpful you are, how well do you listen to others, how much you care. You get respect by showing respect.

When we’re jealous of someone, we usually focus on a certain aspect of their life — he’s popular, she’s rich, he plays guitar really well. What we fail to see is other parts of their life, ones that we may not be that great. Maybe someone’s riches are bundled with a broken family. Or someone’s talents may be topped with anxiety and stress.

So unless we’re comfortable exchanging our life completely with them, accepting everything good and everything bad, there’s no point of envy. From that perspective, you cannot remain jealous of that person. You may want some of the things, but you will notice that everyone’s life is flawed in one way or another.

Now even though envy is a negative emotion, it servers a purpose. It reveals our deepest desires. Going by Morgan’s example, the expensive car may point towards the desire for respect. Similarly, travel may hint at the desire for freedom. And if you’re jealous of someone’s good looks, their popularity, the compliments they get, maybe it’s the desire for connection that you’re seeking.

If we think about it, we rarely want the thing we’re after. What we actually want is to fulfil the underlying desire. Once we figure out what that is, then we can aim at it directly, without spiraling down the path that isn’t our own.

Morgan writes at the intersection of history, finance and psychology. Read his book if you haven’t already.

This book is an expansion of his most popular blog post with the same name. So if you want a summary of the book, you can read the original blog.

I’ll catch you next week!
Aachman