this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2026
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I find it weird that success is conflated with (large) income. Authentic personal success is at best tangential to income and at worst contradictory to it
Do you want healthy living? Income will run you into your grave
Want a close joyful family? Income will keep you away from them
Wanna be a better version of yourself? Income will train you to be exploitative tyrant
Success is a trap
Saying that higher income leads to unhealthy lifestyles which results in earlier death is statistically incorrect and logically just completely bizarre. You need good money to be able to afford good food, hobbies, good medical care, etc, without having to worry about your budget.
Saying that higher income keeps you away from having a close, joyful family is similarly absurd and shockingly lacking in the ability to understand what it is to live as a person on low income. That means having to work extra hours all the time, having to work extra jobs just to make ends meet. You need higher income to be able to spend time with your family.
As for saying that not being broke will lead you to be an exploitative tyrant, I don't even know how to reply to that. Your whole post reads as extremely privileged and like you have never been poor.
Success I was talking about (also in the video) is not about floating above poverty. It's about breaking in higher middle class tier. I believe chasing this tier of income starting from poverty will do a number on you. In the process of getting to higher income you'll exchange your health, family and empathy for opportunity to earn progressively higher income
For the context, I grew up in a hood, had quite limited social safety net, worked about a dozen jobs paying fraction of minimum wage before turning 18. I felt miserable most of the time -- in hindsight I realize I was often simply hungry & cold but at the time it felt like world simply hates me.
I moved to local capital and had experience in success chasing game. I earned several times the average country average while working clean & prestigious office jobs. Yet despite the money, success chasing brought me to the lowest low of mental health until I couldn't go on. Therapy, medicine and vacation just weren't extreme enough to help me recover in some reasonable time frame. Experience of my peers shows similar story: while playing the success chasing game, everyone eventually breaks, get traumatized, get cynical or simply isolate away
That's what keeps the rich in power: the widespread assumption that they somehow deserve it —which only feeds the bottomless hunger to "attain" similar for oneself. 🤢🤕