Stop Chasing Forever-Moving Goal Posts
The case of the 96-year-old entrepreneur who just won’t quit
Bruce Gordon is 96 years old and worth over $1 billion.
He just sold a handful of regional TV licenses so that he can acquire a controlling stake in Nine — one of Australia’s largest FTA TV networks, with a market cap of over $2 billion and over 4,700 employees.
He’s a living embodiment of the idea that no matter what you achieve in life, or how much you earn, the goal-posts will forever be moving.
There are numerous healthy and not-so-healthy reasons why we might delude ourselves into chasing forever moving goal-posts, even after we already have more than enough to live a good life.
These include:
1. The satisfaction that comes with the pursuit of a goal and the feeling of progress.
2. The relief from uncomfortable emotions that come with distracting ourselves with work.
3. The desire to make a positive contribution to the world, while we’re still here, and feel a sense of purpose.
Whatever the case, numerous studies find that whatever our salary, whether it be $50K or $500K, we’re susceptible to concluding that “once I earn TWICE as much, THEN I’ll be happy”, and that we’ll never be truly content with our lot in life.
The more we earn, the more we’ll spend, the more high-earning people we’ll inevitably rub shoulders with and compare ourselves to, and the faster we will run on the proverbial hampster wheel to keep up.
I’m in no position to speculate on Bruce Gordon’s motivations — they are his own and I wish the man well — but at 96 with a net wealth of $1 billion, he is still not content to rest on his laurels.
What makes you think an extra ‘X amount of dollars’ will satisfy you?
Chances are, for most (granted, not all) people reading this, you already have ‘enough’ to cover the basics and live what is by most modern conventions, a comfortable life.
As humans, we are prone to look for the negatives, the ‘what could be betters’.
Only by learning to truly appreciate all we do have, can we get away from this.
Our lives are full of things, that if lost — we would go through hell or high water to recover, yet we take them for granted.
As Stoic philosopher Seneca put it, “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor”.
This doesn’t mean that we vegetate on the couch binge-watching Netflix all day once we realize we already have ‘enough’ (although I do recommend the season finale of Cobra Kai).
But making peace with having enough frees us up to live a more intentional life, pursuing the things we actually WANT to pursue, instead of forever playing the wealth accumulation game at the expense of our time and energy.
And if acquiring media assets at the age of 96 is what truly lights you up, then more power to you. 👊
