Why are rich people unhappy despite they are given a life on a silver platter?

It’s because happiness is something you do. You be happy, or don’t be happy, by choice. Nothing will make you happy by itself for long, even being rich, powerful, and beautiful.

Being served what you want on a silver platter does not guarantee happiness. As sugar is only sweet when you taste it, life has to be lived, actively, in order for it to satisfy you.. It’s undeniable that materialistic comforts can be pleasant, but I only call that euphoria. Euphoria, whether from a drug, spending money, or anything else outside of yourself, always fades with time and gives diminishing returns. Long-lasting happiness is more internal.

To go into more detail, let’s consider all three categories of people stated by you in the question under the same umbrella: rich. Because ultimately, rich just means having lots of something desired by most people, and not necessarily money. You can be rich in good looks, or rich in social status.

While getting rich and protecting that wealth, such people overvalue money over relations and health. The desire to get richer, even when they are rich enough to get everything they wanted before, becomes a compulsion for those people. That’s a sort of addiction, I would say. No doubt it’s human nature, and it’s also especially common with new-money people, who started off not wealthy but became so through very hard work. The requirement at such a point in life is not more money, but contentment, which usually doesn’t come. The one who realizes the value of contentment in time gets to actually enjoy their money and success (if they earned it). Well, there’s a lot more to discuss on that.

In short, the consequence of all that is, most rich people, self-made or silver spoon, become lonely, as when he had his family and friends, or a healthy lifestyle, or a rewarding career doing something else, he ignored them to chase dollar signs and commas. Might be that ignorance was not intentional, but that’s the granularity of relations. Often you would see rich people surrounded by many people, but all those relations are mechanical, utilitarian. They are only there to serve each other’s material wishes.

It’s commonly said that once a person gets rich, or is rich, they lose all their real friends and only get fake ones who are after what they’ve got. This is an exaggeration, but it can happen to a person who only values money. You always attract people who value what you value. If you only value money, don’t be surprised when all your friends are equally shallow.

I want to be clear on something, though: making more money is never wrong by itself. Money is neutral, having more or less does not mean anything about a person morally, ethically, etc. What I disagree with is pursuing money for its own sake, at the detriment of other parts of life.

Sadly, a lot of people are seduced by money buzzwords like millionaire, seven figures, and double comma. These things are worthless, they’re just words. It’s like an eight-foot-tall man starving himself to death because he wants weight as much as a five-foot-tall woman, because to him a lower number on the scale is better. A total lack of perspective. We all have different needs, relative to other needs. We all need a certain amount of money to get and protect what really matters to us, and anything after that is good, but not the point.

Continuing further with that, when anyone lacks true relations in life, health starts deteriorating, starting with mental health first. Then starts the process of actually being unhappy. An age-old saying fits in well here: “When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when a character is lost, all is lost.”

Anyways, we are on a topic where any discussion could be endless. I would say be rich enough to be happy. Let that be the goal first, and then see what you want after that. To complement my point, as well as give more strength to the point raised in your question, I have a relevant post to share.

My post is: “The Homeless Millionaire: How Making Money Is Only Half the Battle”. It describes how being a millionaire means nothing by itself. That also tells in a better way why rich people are usually unhappy. 

In the end, I would focus again on being rich enough to meet your needs, enjoy and spend time with family, and remain happy. If still, the desire for more money and more ability to do what you want comes in your mind, then try to attain financial freedom.

Don’t forget to leave me feedback once you complete reading that post.

Good Luck!

Thanks,

Cleo