How Being Filthy Rich Is Ultimately Meaningless and What to Do About It
The terrible cost of forever chasing money to get us the two things we can’t buy: Love and Time
Terrie’s note was hard to read. Always good at setting boundaries, she wrote me in a kind email that she had to set some boundaries around angry people. I thought it was directed solely at me, and I took it personally.
It wasn’t about me at all. Not really (it rarely ever is). Of course, my frustration with an insurance company whose emergency services department wasn’t responding didn’t help, and I was irritated, but that wasn’t the problem.
During a calmer moment, Terrie shared that in her volunteer work with the elderly in Austin, she had been assigned a particularly angry client who was approaching 95. It wasn’t the age, per se. The client was ridiculously rich, worth tens of millions, living in a beautifully-appointed 10,000 square foot mansion.
What made her angry was her lack of control over own life and affairs.
Terrie said that the woman was “fiercely independent,” two words that I have used to describe myself and which also are used to describe other friends of mine, most of whom are aging solo. We’re awfully proud of that in America. Increasingly we are…
