He wore himself out

The author Scott Fitzgerald was fascinated with wealth and glamor. He was driven and ungodly, talented but also impossibly immature. He wore himself out. “I used to write for myself,” he lamented while staring at his mountainous debts. Now, he wrote to keep the collectors at bay.

He had to dig himself out of a hole with his editors or friends. It destroyed his confidence and stole from him the love he had for his craft. And despite lifetime earnings of what would be millions today, he would die essentially broke in a hotel room alone. His fortune was gone and came at the cost of many lost years of great writing. Dorothy Parker said as she looked down at a 44-year-old Fitzgerald in his casket. What struck her most was his worn and wrinkled hands, quietly convincing the toll of all the excess and indulgences, something not even the most skilled embalmer could hide.

Ryan Holiday writes about this in his brand-new book “Discipline is Destiny.” Holiday says, “If you have the money, spend it. The problem is when people pay what they don’t have to get things they don’t need at a price that is nowhere near worth the cost.

Living beyond one’s means isn’t the only form of reckless money management. It’s also irresponsible to be penny-wise and pound foolish to ground your life and vitality into dust.

Discipline with money is relative. The internet abounds with legitimately wealthy people sharing tips on how to reuse trash bags or stack coupons to reduce the cost of things they should not even be thinking twice about. And we must be on guard against how easily this becomes greed.

It’s important to save. Sure, we want to make sure that this isn’t costing us our most precious resource time. It may also cost us relationships with lovely people, our spouse or children, or friends who are not quite strict with themselves.

For centuries, people on both extremes of the money spectrum have fundamentally misunderstood its value its purpose. Fitzgerald thought the rich were special and that they were different from other people. Hemingway would write in response. Yes, they have more money. Money isn’t good or bad. It is a tool.

Money provides freedom when leveraged and great, but if it becomes an addiction, a disorder, or worse, a distraction, then it is not so great. Like many powerful tools, money also has its dangers and must be wielded safely and consciously. And it is not for the weak-minded.

The problem is that many of us tell ourselves that someday we will be beyond this. If we can earn enough to be successful, we won’t have to consider any of it. We will be beyond moderation and financial conscientiousness. We will have transcended the everyday worries of the ordinary person. We can do what we want when we want, as much as we wish to, because we’re good. We’ll have arrived.

Here’s the thing that never happens. Money thought this way is a chimera, a myth, a delusion. You never get it. Nobody does. Poor people have poor-people problems, and rich people have rich-people problems because people always have problems. You’re always going to be subject to the necessity of self-discipline. Or at least you’ll never be immune from the consequences of ignoring it.

To think that having so much money is an admirable goal because, with a lot of it, you do not have to care about anyone, or anything is not a virtue; it is childishness.

Renowned as a great Stoic teacher, Musonius conceived philosophy as nothing but the practice of noble behavior. He advocated a commitment to live for virtue, not pleasure since virtue saves us from the mistakes that ruin a life.

The popular stoic gave quite a bit of money to a particularly greedy person to go away as he was annoying and frustrating. One of his followers objected and pointed out the man’s many faults. Musonius smiled and said, “Money is exactly what he deserves.”

This conversation can also be cut both ways.

Plenty of people have made plenty, and it doesn’t have to make them worse. We determine whether we’ll deserve what we’ve gotten. We decide which direction to go, better or worse, of luxury or a burden.

When our choices turn us into becoming a person who has to worry about money, then we’re not exactly rich, are we? No matter how much money we have.”

Here is my take on this lesson presented by Holiday. We do not own our money, possessions, or even our loved ones. But all these are stewardship issues and need to manage correctly and responsibly. Yes. We may have everything, but we do not own anything.

Have you ever seen somebody in a casket? The hands are empty.

(Francis Kong’s podcast “Inspiring Excellence” is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or other podcast streaming platforms).