Not everything is about money. Peter Buffett, son of one of the world's richest and investing savant Warren Buffett, gave up his inheritance of Berkshire Hathaway shares (worth about $72 million in 2010) for the freedom to live a life as musician.
Peter Buffett writes, (hat tip Professor Russ Roberts) [bold emphasis mine]
My inheritance was relatively modest, but it was more than most young people receive to get a start in life. Having that money was a privilege, a gift I had not earned. If I'd faced the necessity of making a living from day one, I would not have been able to follow the path I chose.
Would my father have helped me get started if I'd chosen a career on Wall Street? I'm sure he would have. Would he have given me a job at Berkshire Hathaway if I'd asked for one? I suppose so. But in either of those cases, the onus would have been on me to demonstrate that I felt a true vocation for those fields, rather than simply taking the course of least resistance. My father would not have served as an enabler of my taking the easy way out. That would not have been an exercise of privilege, but of diminishment.
This demonstrates the differences of value preferences. Peter's priorities are different from his father's. One cannot measure individual choices from aggregates or statistics.
Yet like Professor Roberts, who counselled his students “not to take the job that pays the most money” but instead go for trade which delivers “satisfaction, meaning, leisure, beauty, pride, and honor,” I recently advised my newly graduate eldest son not to seek the pursuit of money as the primary objective for career development, but to go for specialization in the field which he feels comfortable with.
After all, achieving career excellence is about the ability to serve consumers; where consumers ultimately determine one’s market value or career success (outside the political spectrum).
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