2024-06-06 the negative side of experiencing luxury

The speaker talks about the allure of luxury and power, and how once experienced, it becomes difficult to live without. They discuss the motivations of successful people and the trappings of success. The speaker reflects on what they would do if they suddenly had a lot of money, realizing that they wouldn't make many changes to their current life. They discuss the idea of simplicity and having a small piece of land. Ultimately, the speaker concludes that they can't imagine living any differently and wouldn't make significant changes if they had a lot of money. Imagine coming out of your house, or your office, or the restaurant, and your car with a driver is waiting outside, he opens the door, and you step in. Imagine having that luxury. You would expect it to be somebody who's successful, wealthy, powerful. Once you've experienced that, where you don't have to find your car that you parked two streets away, call a cab or an Uber, catch a bus, once you've experienced that, there's no going back. You wouldn't want to not have that. Once you've had a taste of that luxury, you're in a successful, powerful, wealthy position, a CEO of a company, high-ranking politician. You would do anything to keep it. In fact, you might want a particular kind of vehicle, not just any vehicle to be driven around by your personal chauffeur, but perhaps a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley, or anything that takes you, sets you apart, that gives you the luxury that you have become used to, that you expect, and you can afford it. So, of course, that's what you do. You're in a position to travel first class. Wherever you need to go, arrangements are made by your people. Reservations, hotel rooms, whatever is required, you don't have to do anything. You simply turn up and avail yourself of the situation. For us mortal people, normal people, who don't experience such things, the idea sounds wonderful. Many people would like to experience such things and aspire to it. They'll do whatever they can to have a better vehicle, have all the trappings of success, be successful. They desire it. They want to experience it because when they see it, they can imagine how lovely it must be. And I'm sure it is lovely, not to have to wonder where to park, not to have to deal with the rain when you come out of the restaurant. Your driver is waiting there with an umbrella to help you get into the car, almost without a drop of rain touching you. You tell him where you want to go, at any time, in any way, meet me here, bring this round, I'm ready for you now. He's always there, your companion, maybe your friend, but in any case, his job is to always be there for you. I think it might be very nice to experience it. But once you take the journey, once you start the journey of luxury, your money, there's plenty of it, you don't have to think about it anymore, you've gone far past the point where you have to think about what things are spent on. What kind of a life must you be living in order to justify having those things? You might need protection. Your driver may also be your bodyguard. And having somebody always there will give you a sense of confidence, make you feel capable of things that you wouldn't otherwise necessarily do were you just alone. You could go places, see things, speak to people, say things to them. You wouldn't necessarily say if you didn't have what you felt was a kind of backup. Again, I don't know what that's like, but I suspect that it will give you a sense of confidence, power. And once you've had that feeling of power, once you start to get used to having it, you can't live any other way, you wouldn't want to. You would do anything to sustain yourself. And if you are a very talented, creative, successful person, you're probably not going to have to find out what it's like to let go of, to lose what you have now acquired. The higher up the ladder, the more, the further up the ladder you want to go. There's always someone else further up. You now want to experience what they experience. You want to know what it's like to be truly powerful. I suspect that's what motivates those people who are politicians, who want to experience the highest office and all the trappings that come with that. Artists, film stars, musicians, they want to achieve, they want to be recognised, they want to be successful. They have to be talented, they have to have something worthy of that success. But once they've achieved a certain level, they get used to a certain level of luxury. But we know, when we get the opportunity to see, that life is not necessarily simple for those people. Relationships don't always work. They seem to be caught up in things that regular people don't really get to deal with. That there is no escape from the issues of character that can seem to be hidden by expensive suits and luxury travel, money and power. But underneath all of that are still flawed human beings. Whether they're talented or not, or whether they simply have been good at manipulating and intelligent play to achieve a level of standard of success within their chosen career, lifestyle, life situation. Those who have found success and power, luxury that comes from it, will never want it to go. They have to know what it's like to go further. They have to know what it's like to go to the end of the path. All that can be experienced. Why is it that just because you have money, you have to start buying expensive things? Yachts and second homes. You've got to start spending it. You've got to start having the luxury lifestyle. You can't live simply with millions in the bank. It makes no sense. It's also why, in many instances, those who suddenly acquire money through windfall, the lottery for example, and prior to that were regular people doing a regular job, often blow all the money. They just don't know how to cope with what is essentially a free pass to do anything, have anything, at any given moment. That's not a criticism. Who's trained to know what to do, to know how to deal with that kind of shift in life? Some of us might be able to do better. But if you've got that kind of money, you have to start to think about what you're going to do with it. What's the point of it otherwise? You could give it to charity. You could become philanthropic. Very altruistic and that's great. If that's what makes you feel good about yourself, then that's a very worthy thing to do. Build hospitals in Africa. Make sure that villages have water. I think there are people who do those things and it must be very rewarding to change people's lives for the better. Nothing wrong with that at all. But ultimately, it does make them feel good about themselves. And that's fine. I was thinking about this earlier, not sure exactly why, that if I suddenly had two million pounds in my account, by whatever reason, whatever means it arrived there, would I change my life? What would I do differently if money was suddenly not something I had to think about at all, in any way? I realised I don't think I would do much. I don't want to travel. There isn't anywhere I want to go. I've been to many places in the world. Of course, there are many places I haven't seen. Sure, it would be lovely to do so, but I wouldn't want to do it alone. So, a part of the freedom to change my life would require me to have a companion, a friend to share it with. I think that might change things considerably. But currently, as things stand, I don't need to go anywhere. I don't want to acquire things that I don't already have. Okay, if I need to replace my headphones because they break, I'm sure I'll buy a very good quality pair of headphones. No reason not to. But I won't have six pairs of them. I won't have loads of clothes and tons of shoes and I don't want stuff. Yes, I might choose to eat out every night. But even eating out becomes boring after a while. It's the same thing. Again, small changes. Yes, I can see that. Freedom to have the on a whim decide I'm going to have some fish and chips. I sort of do that now. But I wouldn't really change what I do. So, I'm not going anywhere. So, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not really changing how I eat, really. I'm not acquiring property. Although, having said that, I suspect a bit of land where I can have a cabin built or park the caravan. Because ultimately, it doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be somewhere I feel I can be. Kind of like I am now. But just a bit different. I get that. A little bit of land. Not much. Where I can be. Perhaps there's somewhere I can fish. Perhaps I can chop wood. I'd want to keep things simple but also let go of the world in a much more profound way. Have a solar power station with cables linked to it that I can just plug in rather than have to put it on the roof and always find somewhere that the sun hits. I think ideas would come to make the situation very realistic for me. But again, it's not that much of a difference to how I'm living now. And then what? The money's just sitting in the bank. I don't really care about earning interest. I don't earn interest on the money that I have in the bank now. I don't need more. I don't need to make my money earn more money especially if I've got more than I could ever spend. I'm not a gambler. I don't need to buy a £10,000 watch. Or have a £5,000 suit made. I could imagine having a pair of boots made to fit a pair of high-quality walking boots. That seems like a nice thing to experience. I don't know how much of a difference it would be to wear custom-made bespoke boots. That might be something I could have. Bespoke boots. That might be something I could have. But not here. I'd have to go to London for something like that. Why would I want to go to London? So I probably wouldn't get those boots. Besides, I have a nice pair of walking boots that isn't bespoke. I don't need it to be. So even as I'm thinking randomly off the top of my head what would you do if you had loads of money? It's not straightforward. Would I go around being philanthropic? Making small donations? Doing it anonymously? I don't know. I don't think so. I probably wouldn't tell anybody of my shift in wealth. I would just appear to be who I am. The same bloke. I wouldn't be wearing fancy clothes. Just the comfortable things I wear now. I can't really imagine living any differently. Buy a business? Start a business? Take over? Don't think so. Nothing would really change. Not anything of any significance. Sure, having a bit of land. Having a caravan parked on it. Sounds lovely. Having a wood-burning stove. Solar panel for electricity. Yes, that sounds great. But I'm alone. No family. No friends. So unless I if I reveal my financial changes people might want to know me better because they might get something out of it. They might appreciate the generosity that their friend is willing to bestow upon them. I used to be very generous when I was in my twenties and I was working and earning tons of money and my friends weren't really he wasn't very well off. I would just take him out, pay for food go to a restaurant pay for drinks in the bar give him money when he asked for it and just would hand it because I had plenty. And it just didn't really matter. Ultimately it wasn't good for our friendship. Our friendship broke down a little bit later on for a number of reasons and that was it. We were out of each other's lives for the rest of our life. But back then I think I was happy to have a friend a best friend, a companion someone I hung out with and by osmosis hung out with other people got to go to parties and other places where at the time those were things I was interested in because of knowing him of being around him. Now I'm not interested in those things. So bestowing handing out don't like the idea of it because it changes the way people see you. They want something they expect something they appear differently. So it wouldn't be obvious to anyone looking it would not be obvious that anything has changed for me. I find that interesting. The very opposite of what most people would do with money most people want it they want the life that they think will give them pleasure. They imagine and if they can make their way to it they do. And once they get there they don't want to they wouldn't come back they don't want to let it go. They want more of it they want to secure it. To me that all sounds weird and it's not something that I can really understand. But I sort of remember what it was like to work in the world where money was the main aim. You could do the work well you would earn more money. You might actually also as we all did many of us most of us fiddle and act dodgy grey areas cross the line. It was just the world I was in. But even in other worlds there's always the temptation to feather one's nest take advantage get away with something. It makes you feel good. I liked the adrenaline rush. Now I don't now I'm not interested in any of that. But he was back in the day. The Simon that's speaking now doesn't want any of that stuff. He isn't interested in drink and drugs and women and experiencing luxury where people look at you and admire and would like to know what it's like and aspire to be oh I'd like to be like him I like the way he lives or I like those things he wears. You see the successful many of the successful many of the successful music artists rappers especially cover themselves in gold and diamonds huge heavy things to show their wealth because what else are they going to do with it? They have diamonds and gold put into their teeth and just whatever they can come up with doesn't matter do it how much? 100,000? Not a problem. Here's the money. It's not me. It's not my life. It's not my life. I'm not judging. Look they many have come from poverty and so you can understand that once they make it they flaunt it they may be very generous to their friends a big entourage many are I couldn't really deal with that I wouldn't want that sycophants people hanging on because they get something from you and you get something from them because they big you up they make you feel important you're the man the main man yes if I was a wealthy person when I was younger and had children I would make sure that the children had the best education but also I'd want to be careful not to spoil them I don't want them to just have everything it's not that's not a an unusual thought pattern many wealthy people are like that but I also want to know my child and love them and feel close to them and not just be somebody who tells them things and buys them presents on their birthday yes it's not straightforward this thing that the usual path of life is to acquire to get more to get the money to get the stuff to get the luxury to have this thing to go on holidays I bought the boat oh yes I'm going to the south of France oh yes we went to the restaurant it was a thousand pounds for the night it's like what's ridiculous but if you've got it you've got to do something with it you don't really understand what it is about I don't know I've not spent much time with wealthy people I've been around people who can afford to do what they like but not wealthy really wealthy I don't know what it's like to be around someone like that