Money creates boredom

I was having this conversation with someone online the other day and he said something that I found pretty difficult to believe. Somehow the conversation turned to wealth. The gentleman that I was talking to asserted very strongly that if the average person became rich, they would become bored after only a few months if they didn't have to work. He made it very clear that he would feel that way personally, but that he wasn't talking about just himself. It was his belief that pretty much everyone would want to go back to work within a year or two.

So, I thought about what an "average" person's life is like. You are startled out of a sound sleep by the clanging and clamoring of an alarm clock, cursing the person who set up this cruel torture device, only to remember that it was you. Still bleary eyed, you stumble into the shower cursing alternately as it starts out too cold and then gets too hot for comfort.

After the ritual dowsing of water and whatever other super secret things you do in the bathroom, you emerge covered in different, clean scents and dress for the day. You pour yourself a "cup of ambition", as Dolly Parton would say, and head out into gridlock on your way to the cubicle farm.

There are a few close calls, but you arrive safely at work. Then a whole new set of trials and tribulations awaits you, customer complaints, bosses demanding impossible things by the day before yesterday and other such pleasantries. Eventually, the work day ends and you head back out into the concrete jungle for your homeward journey.

When you do finally arrive home, frustrated and exhausted, often you find that you really just want to call it a day and hope tomorrow is better. Before that though there is some time in front of the television and maybe even some dinner.

If you are single, it ends there. However, if you are married, have children or both, there is so much more in between each other little detail of your day and so much less time to do it. You love your family and desperately want to spend more time with them but the focus and attention that you give to them takes away from other things that are nearly, if not just as important as they are and you find yourself being stretched too thin with no relief in sight.

Well, there is that one to two weeks a year that you shut out work and all the frustrating exhausting things that drive you nuts the rest of the time. That two percent of the year you relax and unwind. You let it all go and recharge your batteries so to speak.

And that is where my side of the discussion comes in. What if you could afford to stretch that two week vacation into a lifetime of no more alarm clocks? What would it be like,  if you could wake up whenever and wherever you wanted to, refreshed because you actually got enough sleep?

Imagine with me. If you wanted to, you could hang out with the kids watching television and playing video games all day. You could go anywhere or do anything that you want. Go water skiing, travel around the world, backpack through the Appalachians, visit every theme park on the planet. Take your spouse to Rome, Paris, or Tahiti. Why pick one? Do them all. Turn that once per month hobby into a once per day thing. Pick up some new hobbies.

In my personal life, I have quite a bit of free time and I don't ever get bored. What limits me from doing a great many more things is not having the funds to do so. If there was more money available there would be more options, more things to do. Unless one is limited in imagination how can more options lead to less fun?