2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

Singapore, and many other Asian countries celebrate Chinese New Year this week. One of the traditions is placing money in red envelopes, and giving it to loved ones.

We thought it would also be a good time to talk about the curse of more money.

Nope, you didn’t read that wrong.

We don’t hate money, (and you can definitely give us some), but what we do think is unhealthy is a persistent focus on having more and more, beyond what’s enough.

One book that has changed my mind on this is Jarvis' 'Company of One', which argues against the cult of bigger, better, faster, and argues that there is value in staying small, nimble, and adaptable.

Over the past year in Singapore, there’s been a lot of attention given to the acquisition of NTUC Income, an insurance company, by Allianz, a German asset manager.

NTUC Income was first set up in 1970 to plug the needs of low-income workers, who often were left without insurance coverage.

So when the deal was first announced in July 2024, there was significant pushback. Some asked why one needed to sell to a foreign insurer.

Others asked whether a listed commercial entity like Allianz could continue to uphold the social mission of NTUC Income.

NTUC Income issued a statement justifying the transaction, stating:

While the goal of providing affordable insurance remains, the competitive landscape has changed with more than 40 global, regional and local insurers vying for growth in a mature Singapore insurance market.

 

This also makes strong and continuous capital resilience a pre-requisite for growth, which a social enterprise model alone cannot shoulder.

Not that Allianz is bad. Nor that NTUC Income had undertaken the transaction in bad faith.

But what’s interesting is how the constant narrative is around growth. Growth on the surface looks good. After all, to tell someone that hey, you might not need to be bigger, sounds like heresy.

They might slap you and demand,

What do you mean ‘not grow’?

How then do you become ambitious?

Let’s take it more personally.

When you start out in your career, you might earn a median salary. $3000 a month, depending on where you come from. In the first month, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised at how comfortable you are, compared to when you were a student.

You can now go to restaurants once or twice a week, and still have more than a $1000 left at the end of the month!

What do you do with all these money? We slowly learn that there are some more expensive things in life seemingly worth having. Holidays abroad in exotic locations like Japan, collectible toys, and fancier clothes.

Heck, there’s even credit that allows you to get the thing now, and pay later! 

Why not?

What we don’t realise is that this growth in our expenses, has a cost.

Sure, incomes may have risen, but without a growing gap between income and expenses, we find ourselves on a never-ending hedonic treadmill demanding ever more growth.

We find ourselves never truly able to walk off the treadmill.

That’s when we find ourselves trapped, in what is no doubt a very big cage, but ultimately a cage, nonetheless.

It’s a cage I call the ‘Curse of Growth’.

In this cage, you find yourself surrounded by nice, luxurious things. But whenever you reach for them, and make them your own, you find a sudden, invisible chain tying itself around your wrist, entangling you.

You look outside the cage, and there’s a boy, walking freely about. He’s dressed in the cheap $4.99 Decathlon shirt, with some nameless brand on for shoes.

You wonder how to get there.

1 talk

Don’t aim for the peak of pleasure, that might be found in the next holiday high.

Aim for the consistent, small, and simple everyday joys.

1 tip

Maybe I will ask you this.

When you were a kid, you probably had $2 a day. That was big money.

But now, when you earn $200 per day from your job, would you say you were more, or less joyful than when you were a kid?

Probably less joy now, because you now have to worry about your mortgage, your kids, your job, and so many other things.

Those aren’t wrong things to worry about.

But what is important to watch is the danger around lifestyle creep.

When I was a kid, I had the most fun playing soccer at the nearby park. In the 2 years of social work, I had little time, and ended up spending money on holidays and wireless mice.

It wasn’t until I went back to earning all of $400 a month that I began to go back to the street soccer court, and play soccer.

It was free, and it was fun.

We aren’t against consumerism, and rewarding oneself with good things. We are against the mindless pursuit of growth, thinking that bigger is always better.

It’s the same with NTUC Income.

They argued that without Allianz, they would have struggled to grow.

But why did they have to even grow, in segments that they were not leading and was possibly leading them to financial doom? Wouldn’t it have made better sense to jettison those business units that weren’t doing as well?

They might not have been a profitable $4 billion business, but they might have been a hugely profitable $2 billion enterprise.

Growth doesn’t always pay well. Sometimes reducing one’s growth can result in smaller, but better growth.

Similarly, sometimes reducing our wants can result in smaller, but simpler joys.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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