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Music Used:
• Whitesand – Melody of My dreams
• Unearthed feat. Philip Daniel (Solo Piano) (Licesend through Musicbed) https://www.musicbed.com/songs/uneart...
• Yin and Yang (Licensed through Musicbed)
https://www.musicbed.com/songs/yin-an...

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Movies & TV series:
• The Wolf of Wall Street
• The Great Gatsby
• The Gambler
• The Pursuit of Happyness
• The Joneses
• The Big Short
• Wall Street
• Shaun of the Dead
• The Wizard of Lies
• Limitless
• Fight Club
• Contagion

Music licensed from Musicbed. Get a free trial of the best music for your videos: http://share.mscbd.fm/storytellersyou...

At the core of the American myth, we find the rags to riches story. To become wealthy and successful, in a society where all are supposedly born equal is proof of one’s qualities, one’s work ethic, intelligence and general value to society. To be wealthy is to be worthy and wealth therefore needs to be shown, and celebrated. The celebration of wealth in America is all over pop culture and to return to the wolf of wall street, the film revels in everything that comes with a wealthy lifestyle. It shows mansions and yachts, supercars and helicopters while also indulging in every vice of the superrich, lavish parties, alcohol, drugs and sex. And after almost three hours of unbridled excess, there is no reckoning, no condemnation or downfall. Instead, Belfort is still selling and the camera. turns to us. Suggesting we all are complicit in a culture where wealth and excess is so celebrated.

Now this video is not a political argument about the distribution of wealth. Instead what I want to put the focus back on social status and wealth, about that in the American dream, wealth not only needs to be earned, it needs to be flaunted to show one’s success, to show ones value. What this current crisis has once again pointed out is how badly prepared we are. American saving rates are bad and very few people has an 6 month or 1 year emergency savings. It is clear that during economic prosperity, spending also goes up. As contrapoints argues, we live in a society that equates wealth with success, with being valuable, but most of us will never achieve extreme wealth, so what do we do, we fantasize and we fake it.

The need to amass and flaunt wealth then comes from existential dread. In our individualistic society we are all born to feel special, to be something special. To be kings or queens, te bo aristocratic, to be the greatest at something. And in America the aristocracy are the rich and famous. The celebration of excess then is the conflation of financial success with the higher fulfillments of life. The American dream proposes that becoming wealthy, and flaunting that wealth by buying stuff, to gain social status fullfills needs like purpose, love, happiness and fulfilment.

A great work ethic, ambition and trying to increase your income in combination with financial minimalism, saving and a safe, long term investing strategy such as Index Funds is the best of both worlds. There is just as much enjoyment to be had in actively saving money as there is in buying stuff, probably even more. And financial stability and peace of mind will give you the freedom to pursue other needs like love, purpose and happiness. Or as John Goodman says it in the Gambler achieve the f you position. (insert). Achieving wealth is not about social status, opulence or excess consumerism. Achieving wealth is about freedom, stability and peace of mind. And as personal finance channels like Graham Stephan advice

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