Do a back-of-the-envelope calculation for how much it would cost to do something to an extreme: - constant tour of the world - ultimate gaming setup - beach bum in the tropics.

Then figure out how much you'd have to work to achieve it. In most cases, it takes less than a full-time median wage 52 . 40 . 16, meaning I could do them working far less than full-time.

"making it" is a state of mind. As is striving to reach an amorphous goal. Happiness research is perhaps some of the most useless work in economics because self reporting is so iffy.

If people don't feel rich, it has nothing to do with their absolute level of material comfort. Almost everyone alive today is far more rich than all other humans that have ever lived.