I have a patient, who recently entered his 60s, and by all outward appearances, he would seem to have reached the pinnacle of his life.
But, once you get to know him, you would never know it.
He just so happens to be a mental health professional from a working class background.
This person sincerely and venomously hates and distrusts most people, including those closest to him. His entire value system is basically an unhealthy, materialistic obsession with money. Unfortunately, he has passed this legacy down to his two sons, Ivy League educated, both bond traders, both gainfully employed at elite firms. Both making tons of money.
Like father, like son, their relationships, their very lives, are dominated by competition and cut-throat comparisons, constantly touting their earnings, spending sprees, whoring, drugging, exotic travel, and so forth and so on.
Through it all, though, there is this underlying sense of dis-consolation, dread, desperation, anxiety, emptiness, and profound loneliness.
Don’t listen to the Beatles. Money can buy happiness. Just ask these guys. But it is a short-term, disposable happiness, like a child who receives a new toy. Once the slick packaging is torn away and the novelty wears off, the joy evaporates.