Why All the Money You’re Chasing Won’t Matter at 60

It will neither make you feel happy nor protected

In July 2020 my uncle jumped out a window in a COVID-19 hospital ward. It was a sunny Friday afternoon. A few hours before the unfortunate incident, the doctor told him he was cured and going home the next Monday. Accustomed to PPE and ventilators, the medical staff were shaken. This man had been cracking jokes all day! Nothing indicated he would plummet onto the concrete below.

My uncle was the least likely person to commit suicide. It came as a total shock. My mind couldn’t grasp the fact for days. He was a skillful man who wouldn’t accept the word Impossible. He owned a successful company, closed huge deals, and carried his family on his back. He could handle tight deadlines, debtors, even racketeers. He took care of his health and climbed roofs with workers even at the age of 65. He was the most agile man I knew.

He got his family through the most turbulent years single-handedly. And he was among the first to start a company as our country transitioned from Communism to capitalism. While my dad worked for $3 a month in an old factory, my uncle would buy his kids trendy clothes and finance their expensive hobbies. When he’d come for a visit, he would give me pocket money. This man was my rich savior who lived the American dream.

But after 30 years of entrepreneurship, my dear uncle ended his life quickly and without any note. And nothing was the same anymore.

After He Died, Everything Collapsed

The rock of the family was gone. My aunt fell into depression. Eight months later, she still barely eats. She rarely leaves their beautiful white house. My aunt neither wants to see a therapist nor keep on living without her husband.

Their daughter moved in to take care of her mom. Due to COVID-19 measures, she has left her schoolboy son at home with her husband. My cousin spends all day at the company because she doesn’t want their business to fail. She says it would let her dad down. In the evening, she rushes to my aunt to remind her she still has reasons to live. Recently her mother-in-law has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer. But my cousin hasn’t given much support to her husband as she is still at work and at her mom’s. Because of the pressure both spouses have suffered, their marriage is broken. They are getting divorced.

After my uncle’s death, his son became desperate. He couldn’t function properly for months and kept telling his kids how their grandad died. As his older sister took over the company, the brother was afraid he would lose his share. Over time his suspicion rose uncontrollably. One day he even became violent and shoved her with all his might. The money tore them apart.

Was It All Worth It?

As my uncle died, one thought kept repeating in my head:

You had been building an empire all those years to just leave everything in such a ridiculous way.

Why he left — we’ll never know. He didn’t have problems at work. Did he realize there was no big goal to chase as he was about to retire? Or was he hallucinating as so many COVID-19 patients do? Was he treated with the wrong medication? Maybe some new racketeer was after his profit? I decided to believe in the hallucinations version and finally close the gap of not knowing why he ended his life.

No matter what the reason was, I kept thinking how it all wasn’t worth it. My uncle loved the whole business chase. He was the kind of man who couldn’t sit still and do paperwork in an office. But he never got to enjoy all the fruits of his labor in the summer house he built. He never stopped to remember from where he had started and what he achieved. And he didn’t take money to his grave. It stayed behind him, to be split in a huge family fight.

My dear uncle was a hard worker who created a comfortable life for his entire family. But the pandemic erased all his power and disintegrated that same family.

The Pandemic Proved the Chase After Money Is Absurd

My uncle could have afforded everything to have a peaceful life. But he’d always invest in another project. Although his high goals were fulfilling, he never got to tell himself:

This is what I’ve made. Life’s good.

Money works on us like a curse. The richest people in the world have come out of this crisis even richer. But with all their funds they are still oppressing their workers. And they will continue to chase their ambitions like a dog chases his tail. They’ll always feel they don’t have enough. The irony is they could create 120 million jobs in social care if they just paid 0.5 percent extra tax. Instead, their greed and fixations will lead them until they die without any higher moral goals.

But this pandemic has also shown us how money isn’t everything. Most of us realized we don’t need as much as we thought. We’ve spent less on clothes, gas, fun, and ridiculously expensive pampering that doesn’t bring happiness. We’ve realized how much we are in the machine of the economy. And some of us have learned we can also stop and be fine with no progress as long as everyone’s safe and sound. Finally, we’ve learned how to coexist with each other better without buying entertainment. We’ve remembered the value of relationships.

But My Uncle Built His Life with Ambition, Not Relationships

My dear agile uncle didn’t invest in family travels. He went to the same resort every year. He wasn’t around when his kids were growing up. He was building a house and his business instead. He was investing in real estate and concluding deals with huge shopping malls. He was distributing top-quality equipment in the whole region. And he left it all one Friday afternoon when he decided to jump off from a window.

He spent his youth in the grind. And as he got well into his 50s, he started to organize big family get-togethers. But I could never feel a deep connection between his family and mine. There was always some mystery about their daily lives that didn’t bring us close to each other. My uncle was still aloof and very busy.

He taught his family the value of hard work and profit. And his children grew up with the idea that what you do makes you who you are. Work came above everything else. And so it all collapsed when he passed away. His departure hurt his family not only because they lost a beloved father and a husband. They no longer had their guiding light, someone who was giving them the courage to persevere. But above all, they couldn't go on without the man who tied them all together in all their affluence.

It’s Not All About Money After All

My uncle couldn’t take with him anything he built. He went to the other world just like a beggar does. In the afterlife, we are all the same. The money you chase is just a bunch of notes to which you assign your wishes. You believe you’ll be happier if you afford that thing you desire. But what was desirable becomes ordinary and the bar keeps moving further away. Now you want something else.

Money is necessary to cover your basic needs. To protect you and help you to get things more quickly. But going after money at all costs gets absurd. My uncle’s family fell apart. He wasn’t there to connect them anymore. They were worried they wouldn’t have enough and felt threatened by the other family member.

The ties his family members have with other people are weak, so each one of them is swimming in their own despair. If they relied on each other more, they could go through their huge loss with more support from each other. When life hits you hard, you depend on other people. Your pack protects your mental health and gets you through the crisis. Relationships matter much more than ambition. My uncle’s money didn’t save his family from the tragedy. But they keep on chasing their goals because that’s what their dead father taught them.

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