One of the main reasons I have decided to be wealthy (I know, it’s kind of obvious, but I’m a little slow on the uptake) is I have decided middle class stress (i.e., striving every day to achieve status goods) is bad for the human psyche.
However, there is some evidence that removing this kind of stress doesn’t solve everything. The evidence isn’t hard to find, so I will leave it as an exercise to the reader.
One issue is that to some extent, stress is tied up with purpose. The stress of trying to improve our lot in life is one of the things that keeps us going. If it is removed, we end up, well, you know, like this:
Although you could argue that these guys actually represent a better way of life, I am not going to do so here. Instead I want to argue that once you are wealthy, one of your primary concerns will be to make sure that your family is subject to sufficient stress, and the right type of stress.
Then what is the right kind of stress? Well, let’s start by pointing out some wrong kinds of stress:
Economic stress (i.e., treadmill stress): you are engaged in an endless grind just to stay afloat. If you ever let up, you risk losing your job, your house, etc. If it was just you, it wouldn’t be so bad, but your whole family depends on you.
Loneliness: your support network is insufficient. There are a lot of people around you, but no one that you can really share your struggles and triumphs with. Sometimes it feels like even your spouse doesn’t really understand you.
So this is the kind of stress I don’t want for my family. I want us to be wealthy to avoid the first kind, and unified to avoid the second kind. But what is going to replace these two kinds of stress? If we just remove them, we risk creating a stress vacuum, and nature always finds a way to fill a vacuum.
So what kind of stress do I want to impose?
Family Responsibility: your family depends on you to meet family goals and pass on family culture. Sometimes it comes in the form of pressure applied by other family members.
This is somewhat related to economic stress, in that a feeling of family responsibility (and pressure applied by your family) often amplifies economic stress. However, I think they can be separated.
Also, I don’t think that just any attempts at applying family responsibility stress are going to work. For this kind of stress to be effective and healthy, it is a prerequisite that the subject actually feels a responsibility to the family, and that the family actually depends on them to perform some family duties. Neither one of these conditions is trivial.
First, how do you get someone to feel responsibility toward a family? A few possibilities:
- spend a lot of time with family
- talk about family responsibilities opnely
- diminish the status of people who shirk
- kick people out of the family when they reach adulthood and let them rejoin if they can convince you they are committed to the family
And of course, the feeling of family responsibility is enhanced if you are somehow able to give people actual family duties. I think the key here is that the duties need to be actual family needs, but also diverse. Maybe different family members have different strengths that can serve family financial goals.
Not everyone needs to be involved in management of finances, but everyone should understand family goals and circumstances. And everyone needs to fill some role. Aside from making or managing money, other kinds of responsibilities might include raising children, educating children, taking care of the elderly, planning family entertainment/vacations, preserving family history, beautifying family property, helping the family maintain their health.
Some of these are full time jobs, some aren’t. But the point is that families have a lot of needs. Most people handle these kinds of things individually, with their spouse, or by outsourcing them to strangers. But I think making extended family members responsible for each other is key.
So suppose you are the head of you family, or at least one of the people your family looks to keep things together. Your job is not just to remove the stress from everyone’s lives. Your job is to make sure the people within your circle of responsibility are feeling the proper kinds of stress in the right amount. In other words, stress management.
It’s a complicated job. People like me who always want to systematize everything would prefer to use concrete tools like financial incentives (or my suggestion to kick people out and make them reapply). But you know who is really good at applying family responsibility stress? Neurotic people, that’s who.
I have written a few posts about how I think neuroticism is marginalized in modern society, but that it is a legitimate personality trait. Of the key skills that a neurotic person can master is the art of making other people feel guilty for shirking their responsibilities. The correlation isn’t perfect, but women tend to be more neurotic than men. In a business or political environment, women often feel like impostors because they have to hide their neuroticism. In a family, it should be celebrated as long as it is directed toward maintaining a proper level of stress among other family members.
If you are treading water economically, or you don’t have a proper support network, being around neurotic people can drive you over the edge. But in a family that has reduced or eliminated those things, it is an essential component of keeping the family together.
So to tie it all up, my current theory is that economic stress and loneliness should be replaced by family responsibility. In the absence of these other types of stress, family responsibility stress needs to be maintained at a proper level by some combination of giving people a real choice regarding whether to be a part of the family, giving people real family duties, family status indicators, and guilt. I would probably discourage the use of any kind of financial incentives after someone is a fully committed member of the family, but I can think of a few scenarios where it might make sense.
