If you want to feel like you have enough money, stop looking at your bank accounts.
The answer to the question of whether you have “enough” actually has nothing to do with your net worth. We see this constantly in the personal finance community. People set a massive wealth goal, hit it, and immediately double down to work for one more year. They spend their time endlessly arguing on the internet about the exact right safe withdrawal rate.
The problem is that they are trying to answer an emotional question with math.
We have to realize that money is simply a tool. It is not a goal, and it is not safety. It is just a mechanism we use to meet deeper, far more important needs. When people obsess over building a massive net worth, I believe they are actually trying to solve three distinct psychological problems: the need for safety, the need for achievement, and the need for freedom.
The unfortunate truth is that money cannot solve any of them.
The Safety Illusion
If you are constantly worried about having enough money, the root cause could be tied to trauma you experienced in childhood. People who grew up in unsafe environments often use money to try to feel safe. Perhaps you were born into poverty, lived in a bad neighborhood, were a victim of a crime, or had parents who failed to protect you.
It is true that money can help with some of those things, but the reality is you likely escaped those environments a long time ago. You no longer live there, meaning you are already much safer than you were back then. Yet, that past trauma becomes the driving force to accumulate more and more wealth, convincing you that once you hit a specific net worth number, you will finally feel secure.
But the money doesn’t work.
My grandmother was dropped off at an orphanage as a little girl during the great depression. Although she accumulated a good deal of wealth over her lifetime, she often stashed extra food and cash in various places in her apartment.
The fear of of not having enough never left her no matter how much her bank account grew. She felt unsafe because of unresolved childhood issues, not her brokerage balance. Accumulating cash did not retroactively deal with that past trauma.
It blunted the fear, but never helped it resolve.
The Achievement Trap
The second reason we relentlessly chase wealth is to manufacture a sense of achievement. Often, people who use money this way are trying to fix the fact that they didn’t feel like they were enough as a kid.
Maybe you failed a class in school, or you had a sibling who was more impressive than you. Or perhaps something bad happened, and you convinced yourself that if you were just a better, more successful kid, it wouldn’t have happened. All of those lingering feelings drive people to accumulate huge amounts of money and chase massive achievements in the present day.
But hitting a net worth number, making partner at your law practice, or becoming president of your association will not quench that deep-seated feeling of inadequacy from your childhood.
It rarely does. Have you ever wondered why Steve Jobs or Elon Musk never seemed satisfied?
The Mirage of Freedom
Finally, we chase money because we crave freedom. A lot of people grew up in environments where they simply didn’t have the money to do what they wanted to do.
Just like safety and achievement, most of these people escaped those restrictive circumstances a long time ago. Yet, they are convinced that finally reaching a specific net worth number or achieving financial independence will suddenly grant them freedom. But their issue with freedom is locked up in their childhood. They have actually been free for a long time.
How many of us lament the limits of our childhood spending and yet have become so frugal ourselves that we rarely buy what we want?
You Are Already Enough
We accumulate all this wealth, yet we still carry a deep, agonizing sense of feeling unsafe. The solution is not to earn more, save more, or tweak your withdrawal rate.
If you want to feel better, you have to go back and deal with the trauma of your past. You must recognize that the net worth number you are chasing is completely disconnected from the pain you are trying to heal. You don’t have to wait for financial independence to feel secure.
You are probably more safe than you were as a kid. You have achieved more than you thought you would. You are already free.
Did you catch this week’s episode of Earn & Invest (Click to listen)?
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I agree that money can't resolve every insecurity, but I'd push back slightly on the idea that it can't buy safety or freedom. It absolutely can, within limits. Having enough capital to leave a damaging job, survive a financial setback or choose how you spend your time represents a very real change in someone's circumstances. Where I think your argument becomes particularly interesting is the inability to define "enough." I've been examining the economics of financial independence and small business ownership through BrandLab, and I keep coming back to the same question: what exactly are we trying to buy with our money? If we can't describe the life we're funding, no amount on a balance sheet will tell us when we've arrived. Do you think people avoid defining enough because they're afraid of discovering they already have it?
Your grandmother stashing cash around the apartment despite having real wealth — that image explains more about money behavior than a shelf of finance books. You're right that we're usually trying to answer an emotional question with math. I write for a lot of 45-to-65-year-olds, and the ones who've "hit their number" almost never feel done; the goalpost just moves. Naming that out loud is a service.