Why Are So Many People Content With Just Earning A Salary And Working 9-6 Their Entire Adult Life? originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question.
Answer by Jonathan Weinberg, Founder of AutoSlash.com, on Quora.
I think there are two questions here. The first is why people don't want to get rich. I think there are very few people who wouldn't want to to be wealthy.
The challenge is actually figuring out how to do it and then executing successfully.
Getting a business off the ground and making it successful is damn hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise has obviously has never tried. You have to have a magic mix of smarts, focus, tenacity and luck, not to mention the ability to finance the venture in the first place, or be successful at raising money. That last issue alone is enough to weed out a good portion of the population who live paycheck to paycheck their entire lives.
The second question about making an impact that will change the world is more nuanced. I'll break it down into two categories:
Being Apathetic
To be brutally honest, some folks just don't care about making a difference in the world. For whatever reason, they are perfectly content to go about their day doing whatever floats their boat and trying their best to enjoy themselves. They get fulfillment from their own happiness, or at least try to, and they don't feel it necessary to have any sort of lasting impact on society or future generations.
Is this a cynical view? Sure it is. Is there a large swath of the population who live their lives like this every single day? You betcha. Maybe their reason is that the earth has been here for billions of years and man has walked on it for millions, so there's nothing they will do to have any sort of lasting impact? Maybe they feel that others are put on this earth to do good or change it and their contribution is not needed? Maybe they just never thought about it at all?
What Makes a Difference?
Who determines who/what makes a difference? One way of looking at it is that everyone makes a difference in their own way. Some have a more lasting impact (Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Edison), while others like the guy who decides to separate his garbage into recyclables and other trash makes a contribution on a different level.
Who's to say that volunteering at a soup kitchen is any more or less important to society than founding a startup that lets people rent out their unoccupied apartments or rooms to others (AirBnb)?
What about the person who decides to be the best parent possible to their children, spending quality time with them vs. a startup founder who builds a successful company but never sees his/her kids? Who decides which is the better approach?
Just walking around the city smiling at people trying to improve their day has a positive impact on society. I don't think anyone sets out to be complacent. Your own personality and circumstances play a large role in how you go about your life. We all make a contribution in our own way, and that's what makes the world go round.
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