PURPOSE of WEALTH (Pt3): COMFORT
Hello Alers, and welcome back as we continue our purpose of wealth series. If you haven't watched the first two parts covering freedom and security, we recommend you start there, as this is the first one to touch on the positive material benefits brought on by wealth. As much as people would like to brush it off as unimportant, comfort is actually the third reason why people crave wealth, and one that is justifiable in its pursuit.
Because what is comfort if not the minimization of pain and misery? Comfort is what allows the individual to go through life and focus on pleasure and well-being. Now, the first big part of comfort is not external; it has to do with what's inside the body: comfort through food. Everything we put into our body and environment alters the way we experience life. One of the greatest benefits of wealth is that it'll allow you to improve these based on your personal needs and long-term benefits.
For the average person, healthy food has become a luxury and an inconvenience. It's easier to grab some takeaway than to fix yourself a salad, and oftentimes it's even cheaper. People eat unhealthy food because of convenience and, on a second layer, because of financial reasons. Wealth serves as a facilitator for quality intake of energy and resources. When you eat well, you feel great, and feeling great is just a form of comfort. Your body doesn't hurt, your muscles are strong, and your brain functions at a higher capacity. You feel amazing.
And for our earliest ancestors, food was quite literally wealth. Those who had access to food sources were deemed the wealthiest because they didn't have to struggle or fight for survival. That's just how big of an impact food has on our comfort levels. If you look for a layer on top, you'll find comfort through shelter. Shelter is the combined outcome of freedom and security. It's your own corner of the universe that you've designed to fit with who you are to the best of your ability. You've made this little empire, and you are the emperor.
Your home is where you'll spend, on average, two-thirds of your entire life. One-third you'll be in your bed sleeping. The purpose of wealth is to facilitate for you as much comfort through your life as possible, and nowhere is there more of a clear application than in your own home. Today, the average person cannot afford true comfort. As a society, we've chosen to prioritize economic development over the quality of life. People are now living in suboptimal conditions, in what is closer to self-pick cages than anything else.
How can one be happy when you're living here? This is why you work hard; this is why you build wealth—so that nobody you care about will ever go back to these kinds of living conditions. As far as we know, there's only one app specifically designed to increase the quality of your life in what we call the five pillars of a good life: money, health, intellect, emotions, and relationships.
We know about it because we've been building it for the past two years. Okay, over 200,000 people have downloaded our app so far, and they're blown away because they've never experienced something like the Alux app before. So go to alux.com/slapp right now. It's like a cheat code to life.
Which takes us to the third and what is possibly the most important type of comfort: child development in a comfortable environment. The good thing about growing up poor as a kid is you don't know you're poor. But inevitably, you figure it out, and by that point, it's usually too late. The scars of growing up in poverty have already altered who you are as an individual, and these events now serve as your core decision-making factors.
In a very small portion of these individuals, a fire starts burning up inside of them that allows them to escape poverty. Even for them, this hunger never stops, while for the rest, they just settle for what's ironically comfortable to them: mediocrity. Mediocrity means putting up with what you wouldn't have to, just because that's how things are. Discomfort, abuse, and discrimination are just a few pieces of what this lifestyle endures. Through wealth, one can shield the next generation from these scars.
We all want our children to grow up healthy, to thrive, to be strong and vulnerable members of our society. With wealth, one has the power to change the landscape, to give those who have the potential a fighting chance to follow what they truly feel like, not to do what they must do in the hopes of survival. There are many types of comfort out there, but few seem more valuable than knowing your child is safe.
Which takes us to the next type of comfort: comfort through privacy. Privacy means the world is leaving you alone to be yourself, to be peaceful, and comfortably away from other societal problems. The more the world evolves, the more we begin to see privacy as one of the most essential elements of a comfortable and free life, especially with the way technology is evolving. In our opinion, privacy is a fundamental right of every individual, and it's not just us.
They figured this one out in 1948 under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12, which states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon their honor or reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." 150 countries agreed to abide by this. So, what about social media actively using your data to make money? What about facial recognition software installed on CCTV cameras across the world?
Nobody can live a truly comfortable life knowing that everything they do is being monitored and used against them because that's not what freedom is fundamentally. Wealth gives you the power to go full incognito; it introduces a new word to your vocabulary: private. You never realize just how much different elements affect your comfort, which takes us to the last comfort on this list: fun as emotional comfort. The purpose of wealth is to facilitate your well-being in all shapes and forms.
Fun is an integral part of feeling alive. We all have a variety of desires, and a good portion of these can easily be fulfilled with capital. So why not use your wealth for fun? Almost every type of fun can be acquired through money, from adventures to travel to toys. There's a certain feeling you get when that dose of dopamine hits you, and you receive a gift in whichever form it is. We are social creatures, and fun is a sharable concept. You can have fun with other people and share the dopamine-inducing source with others.
What's the point of going through life without having fun? And you know that's where we think most people on Wall Street get the build-holding wealth aspect wrong. Money and wealth are supposed to be facilitators of living, not the other way around. Some people live to work, while others work so they can live. As long as you live, never forget this: make your money hit your goals, but remember to use it so that your life isn't just a financial high score.
The concept of fun encompasses everything that makes your existence feel like it was worthwhile. Think about it: the most valuable things you have from your past are the fun memories you were able to collect. Nobody remembers their sixth paycheck, but we all remember hanging out late at night with our friends. Fun is emotional comfort. Well, for some, fun comes from material toys; others find fun in connecting to the universe in an emotional sense.
When you look at wealth as a source of comfort, you realize the holistic approach one must follow—from feeding your body to protecting your body to protecting your mind, looking out for the future in the context of taking care of your soul. And wealth can do all of this for you if you know how to use it. And for those of you still around, of course, we've got a bonus: comfort in a predictable future leads to happiness.
We feel stressed because we're struggling to choose between what we want to do and what we have to do. If you take an iron bar and use force in two different points, it creates tension between them. That's why you're feeling stressed. We're unsure about the future; we're unsure everything is going to be fine because today is fine, yesterday was fine, and so was the day before.
There's tremendous value in having a predictable future that's aligned with your expectations. On a deep level, happiness is the highest form of comfort. Think about it: we're happy when our reality matches up with our expectations of what reality should be. These are the types of questions we need to ask ourselves in order to figure out where to focus our efforts. And by being here and consuming this type of content, you're pushing yourself toward personal progress, and that's exactly what we'll discuss in part four of this series: progress in all of its wonderful forms.
Make sure to subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out.