Money and Happiness
Many people view wealth as the accumulation of money. "Accumulation" theory is the standard message preached by the misinformed financial media. It tells hard-working people to sacrifice enjoyable activities and products today so they can establish a "nest egg" of net worth. According to accumulation theory, this net worth should be large enough to generate interest capable of meeting "needs" during retirement, and the principal investment should never be touched, because a person could conceivably outlive their money this way.
Because it is taught by nearly all sources of financial "education," people assume that accumulation theory is the way to achieve financial certainty. This belief is quickly shattered once someone reaches retirement with a large net worth, but still worried about money and with no idea how to enjoy it. When people rely on their net worth in retirement, they have good reason to worry, as they face substantial risk. Interest rates earned by their investments can change, as can taxes. Inflation can decrease the purchasing power of their saved money. And always in the backs of their mind, people relying on net worth during retirement worry about the possibility of outliving their money.
For these reasons, accumulation theory is a recipe for unhappiness. It is based on a scarcity mentality that creates "broke millionaires" who have plenty of money but live cheaply. These people are as good as broke, because they hoard every possible penny during their working years and live unfulfilling retirements on fixed incomes. No amount of money can achieve happiness for the broke millionaire, because the scarcity mentality always believes that there is simply not enough.