Money/Happiness Matrix

After not being dead by thirty I decided I would be married by forty. My grandfather told me by dodging marriage in my first twenty-five years I was safe until 40, he was a grousy rapscallion and generally accurate so I believed him. Being goal oriented I was married three months before my fortieth birthday. My wife did not have a party for me which made her feel bad. I remind her of this each year on her birthday or any occasion when I feel I have very likely disappointed her with my gift buying and celebratory event planning inadequacies. I am perfectly happy with this arrangement assuming it does not result in tears. If there are tears I am required to do the “happy clown” dance where I place my hands with outstretched fingers beside my head, make my eyes wide while contorting my face in some goofy fashion and chant, “happy clown, happy clown,” in a high-pitched voice over and over until she smiles. Yes this is identical to what parents do with their infant child who has just taken a tumble and has not yet decided if the incident requires tears and screams. Like me, the parent knows they have a tiny window in which to distract and redirect the subject from bad place to good.

On the other hand since I generally reside in the dark place, when I am just about to crawl, wraith-like, out of my netherworld suffering, clinging to some vestige of new found, but entirely misplaced hope my wife will tell me about one of her Harvard classmates who has just become the youngest Senator ever elected. Perhaps the hedge-fund manager who has just purchased 40 acres of beachfront in St Barths for his personal compound where he will also incubate businesses much like mine but run by people 20 years younger than me, paid in multiples of my salary.

The most recent instance of this was a classmate of hers whose younger brother had just graduated from the crimson empire. He took an internship with a Wall Street hedge fund and was given a $5K sign-on bonus with the caveat it had to be invested and grown over the course of the three-month internship. At the end of the summer he had made $110K. Are you fucking kidding me? He was hired, bought a house in Greenwich and keeps an apartment in town. He was 22 and was never going to have to worry about anything ever again; he had already come from money so chances of him slipping through the cracks were slim anyway.

When I was twenty-two I remember occasionally having to chose between cat food and toothpaste and thinking those fucking cats are so lucky….they have no idea. I wanted to be a cat, actually most days I still do. I have a similar reaction when I see a baby seat in a Bentley––I already hate that baby. Fuck that fucking baby.

I am not suggesting that big money will make me happy but let’s be serious, it does take the sting out of a few things.

I have, over the years, been able to see a fascinating delineation regarding money and happiness. Again locker room wisdom prevails, at an old health club I used to belong to downtown the demographic was mostly high-end brokers and lawyers. But the commuter rail station was across the street and the transit authority HR people had made a deal allowing their employees to use the club. So there were always train conductors and ticket guys in the club as well. The professional folks were fine and a nice lot but they were harried, haggard and always on, amped up and twitchy. The union guys on the other hand were hilarious, always laughing, earnest, really good-natured men and some of the happiest people I have ever seen. They weren’t concerned with competitive home buying, a retirement before 50 portfolio, being invited to the soft open of the new “in” restaurant or pushing their kid into every conceivable activity possible to build their academic resume. They spoke with honor, pride and humor regarding their jobs, families and lives. They weren’t vacationing in the Maldives but they were always taking some kind of trip whether golfing in Charleston, fishing in Colorado, weekend trips with there buddies to Maine it sounded pretty good and not all that far off us white collar boys.

They were not their job. They worked their shift and moved on. They kept things in perspective from the lifestyle they enjoyed to how good and bad days effected them. They didn’t jam themselves into corners where if a deal caved or client left they were fiscally doomed. They didn’t have to work from 7am until 10pm every night to make partner nor was their outlook on life tied to whether or not the collective value of thirty companies on a per share basis moved up or down.

I am not suggesting that everyone forget about their JD or let there series 7 lapse to become a carpenter or join the Carman’s Union in an effort to seek truth and happiness, perhaps raising goats for artisanal cheeses would suffice. But perhaps there is a more than a small lesson to be gleaned from these men about perspective.