04/09/2026
Morgan Housel is one of my favourites financial writers, and this book really touched on a simple truth: how we spend our money is just as important and how we invest and save.
But what fascinates me even more is what our spending habits reveal about our hidden desires.
Very often, when we want to buy something, it isn’t really about the item itself. It’s about the idea of what others will think of us once we have it. Underneath the purchases, all we are really hoping for is love and admiration—and we trick ourselves into thinking that having more things will bring us exactly that.
But because it doesn't, we fall into an endless cycle. We want more and more, chasing a feeling we can never quite buy. In the past, I caught myself doing this all the time. I would obsess over an item, but when I imagined myself with it, my thoughts were always focused on how others would react.
The irony? Once you become self-aware of that true desire, the urge to own the item disappears.
At the end of the day, to receive love and admiration, we first have to give it to others. That doesn’t cost a lot of money—but it does cost time. And time is what most of us are severely lacking.
We can’t make the whole world love us, but we can definitely choose who we want to love by sharing our limited time with them.
And the irony is that to free up our time, we have to build wealth and use it to break free from the financial rat race.
After all, time is the only resource in life that, once lost, we can never get back.
So your wealth-building journey isn't just about investing and making money. It is about aligning your life philosophy with your wealth-building process, from saving, investing to even how we spend.
Connect with me at Learnwithstanley.com, helping you in your wealth building process.
