Last Updated on May 11, 2026 by The Unbounded Thinker

I love the idea of being wealthy and I prefer being wealthy to being poor. In fact, if I were to choose, I would rather be rich and miserable than poor and fulfilled. I see being wealthy as one of the greatest blessings in earthly life as it allows you to go wherever you want to go, take your children to the best schools, live in a spacious home, and most importantly, it leads to independence and self-sufficiency.

Despite my love for material wealth or riches, I recently learned one thing that made me question the pursuit of material wealth. I realized that once you get the amount of wealth you’ve always wanted, you get used to it, and you start desiring more wealth. The cycle never ends. There is always more to acquire. The pursuit is an endless chase in which satisfaction is always temporary and always slipping further into the future.

At first, I used to think that reaching a certain financial level would finally bring lasting happiness. I believed that once I had more possessions, I would be fulfilled. But I began noticing that every financial milestone creates another desire. The moment one goal is achieved, the mind immediately creates a bigger one. What once felt like a dream eventually feels ordinary.

As a young farmer, my biggest goal has always been to increase livestock numbers and create an environment where they are no longer confined and can move freely. I recently achieved this goal, but what surprised me was how short-lived the happiness was. I was excited for only a few days.

After about a week, I had already gotten used to the changes as if they had always existed, and I began feeling that the achievement was still not enough. In fact, achieving that goal only gave birth to the desire for a bigger goal.

What shocked me the most was realizing that, deep inside, nothing had really changed. I still felt empty. I was still the same person who feels bored with physical life and constantly longs for something beyond ordinary existence.

This realization made me reflect on all my material achievements, and I noticed a painful pattern. They never satisfy my soul: they only produce a temporary emotional high that fades after a short time. Eventually, every achievement becomes normal as it blends into everyday life. After the excitement disappears, I am always left feeling exactly the way I always do: empty, bored with life, and increasingly tempted to escape reality through weed.

Thinking about this made me wonder whether the endless pursuit of wealth is somehow out of tune with the natural flow of life because, no matter what we achieve, the desire for more always returns. The moment one goal is reached, another appears in the distance. Because of this, the stress, anxiety, and restlessness of wanting more never truly disappears as long as the pursuit of wealth continues.

This realization led me to a deeper question: what is it that truly fulfils the soul? What makes a human being feel inwardly complete? Religions often say that fulfilment comes from living a righteous life. I cannot confidently speak about this because I have never lived a fully righteous life.

By the way, psychologists have increasingly discovered that righteous qualities, such as kindness, humility, gratitude, love, and compassion, are strongly connected to peace of mind and a sense of fulfilment. Unlike material achievements, which only produce temporary satisfaction, these inner qualities seem to nourish the soul in a more lasting way.

Maybe the ancient stories were right all along when they said that what human beings are truly searching for is already within them. Perhaps the inner peace, fulfilment, and sense of completeness are naturally cultivated through a righteous way of living, and they cannot be obtained from the pursuit of wealth.

The pursuit of wealth constantly pulls the mind into the future. It keeps a person mentally trapped in tomorrow, always thinking about the next achievement, the next amount of money, the next improvement, or the next level of success. Because of this, it is impossible to experience inner peace, fulfilment, and a sense of completeness.

But when you temporarily take a mental break from that endless pursuit, something strange begins to happen. Besides experiencing inner peace and a sense of fulfilment, ordinary things begin to feel alive and magical. You notice the silence of the morning, the movement of the wind, the beauty of nature, and the presence of animals. For a brief moment, life no longer feels like a race toward a distant destination. It simply feels wondrous.

The sad thing is that we can never truly take a complete break from the pursuit of wealth, because it has already been deeply ingrained within our minds. What we can do, however, is pursue wealth with an awareness of its endless nature and the fact that it will always leave us empty and hungry for more, no matter how much we accumulate. We understand that our inner state will remain the same regardless of the amount of wealth we acquire

With this awareness, the pursuit of wealth becomes less stressful and less urgent. Although we may still pursue a wealthy life, we are no longer completely lost in the illusion that wealth will ultimately complete us. We pursue wealth with the knowledge that we are already complete.