thanks, I’ve placed a hold at my library
It’s funny, because I think Ramit knows these things intellectually, that the idea of richness is supposed to be inclusive of having time for deep engagement in appreciating things or doing things that aren’t just shallow/surface (maybe I just want him to because I think it should?) - but he doesn’t actually believe it, it doesn’t resonate with what he’s done with his life, and that keeps on coming out.
Great convo! My take on his whole not living a smaller life than you have to is a bit different. I agree, though, with what madgeylou said that he seems to push people towards his ideal life, which is very much one of consuming. But I suspect that is because he has gotten IRL pushback on the opulence level of his own life, and he wants confirmation that other people secretly also want that.
That said, I see the “don’t live a smaller life than you have to” as “do not make choices out of irrational fear, mindless habit, or lack of perspective.” Not allowing yourself a vacation when you make plenty of money because things might hit the fan and you might need more money is part of it. I also think this would fall into that, though: you are traveling to 10 countries a year and spending tons of time traveling and planning it in order to put a checkmark next to each place you’ve been to, because you feel a frantic urge to collect places and avoid ever being still or simply with yourself. You take constant pictures in every location, live tweet about it, etc, and even when on vacation you are looking at your online stats, to see who has seen what you’re doing. In that instance a person can look like they’re living a big exciting life, but they are actually a mile wide and an inch deep.
Or someone like this: you’re running marathons still even though at your age it would be way safer to run half marathons and learn to be competitive in a different way. Instead you’re putting your body at real physical risk, but you would rather do that than accept your age and mortality, so you’ll keep going until you have an injury so devastating you can’t run at all, ever. Again someone who looks like they are living a BIG life, but who is actually strangled by constant fear and anxiety.
Those ^ aren’t how he talks about it, mainly, but that’s how I see that kind of thinking. I think a smaller life can be a life that is super opulent but devoid of any spiritual life (just in my definition- and for me that speaks to civic engagement as well, and social justice, as it’s a main tenant of my religious beliefs). Or a life that is very focused on outward giving and good deeds and nonprofit jobs, but where the people closest to that person are not actually treated very well. Or a life with tons of socializing, constantly, and no alone time at all because that’s scary. Or a life with super strong community ties but an ever-present undercurrent of “I better not do xyz, bc what will people think…” Or a life with lots of focus on achievement and striving and success, but poor relationships with people you love, or a lack of self confidence despite achieving a lot, or frequent feelings of jealousy. All these are too small in my estimation.
I think balance is my goal so that’s probably why I see people who I perceive to be out of balance as living smaller than they could.
Oh I was so hoping you’d weigh in!! Love this take. “Small life” has many definitions.
It really does! I think maybe it’s worthwhile to think about what type of small life each of us is in danger of having. Because it’s so unique to each person. Like I’m most at risk of having the type of small life where I don’t push for what I want because I want to just get along. Where I’m not assertive enough because I don’t want to make a fuss, so I don’t get what I need/want. Another area would be where I am driven by the fear of physical pain or injury. That would be really easy for me to fall into because of my situation. I’m going back to climbing this week after 9 weeks off for injury. I might get re-injured and have to start back at 0. But I’m going, because at some point you have to jump and risk it or else you’ll never do anything again! I can also be at risk of not prioritizing my own needs enough to myself. Like if dh wants to watch a movie right now but I kind of wanted to meditate first, I have to actually say and do what I want. He never minds, so it’s 100% a me issue, but often I’ll just drop what I was planning immediately to do his thing. I’m working really hard on that this year and it has made a huge difference! Boundary setting is hard for me too, that’s an area where I can easily be out of balance.
I’m not really afflicted with money spending issues, haha. I feel like financially I am already totally in my rich life. And I would loooooove to go to the fancy resorts Ramit talks about, lol, those sound awesome to me. Other areas of balance are more challenging for me.
Oooooohhhh I will be ruminating on this today for sure.
i love the idea of looking for where you are living life out of fear and letting that get a little bigger and less restricted.
i think some of my response to ramit is that i have been working on being okay with a normal-size life. as i have mentioned before, my childhood was chaos itself, and the only way i was able to get love or validation was by being the AMAZING AND BRILLIANT dirty-haired slightly-feral child. and that worked great for me!
but as a grownup, it meant that i was always feeling like i was fucking up when i just had a normal job, nice friendships, a sweet husband, etc. like i should be doing something incredible with a world-changing impact, and if that wasn’t happening, then i was doing something wrong.
these last few years ive been working on letting go of that, and being content with my fairly normal upper middle class white lady life (which honestly is kind of an incredible thing for me to have built at all considering how i grew up and what my siblings ended up doing). my rich life is a contented small life, at least for now.
although i would also like to go to some of the very fancy hotels ramit goes to!
For me I have started to define my own vision of an ideal life. And for me living a smaller life than you need to has turned into living your life out of fear.
But fear is a very interesting term in this situation too. I’m never going to get rid of the fear. In my own brain I have defined my logical brain and my emotional brain. If my logical brain is giving me fear signals based on real information that I should act on I want to include this in my life (buying a bigger house than we can afford, spending money in ways that would actually negatively impact my dream future and current financial security, etc). But if my emotional brain is taking the driver seat and saying “you can’t get the second $6 bowl of soup because you will then think it’s okay to spend all of your money on stupid things and DIE”.
Sometimes Mr. Ninja and I walk around the fancy neighborhoods near us and think of what a day in our lives living there would look like. You might think from the surface it is living a bigger life by living in a bigger fancier house. But what I see is actually a smaller life with fewer options for what I can to do with my money. The conversation might go something like “well we would have a lot more rooms to clean. We might not even go into all of the rooms in our new home. But one thing that would be nice is taller ceilings (Mr. ninja is VERY tall and sometimes hits his head in our stairwells). Omg can you imagine all of the yard work required for this huge place? We would would either need to hire this out or spend a ton of time on it. But look at those pretty flowers, maybe we should get a plant to put in our front yard too!”
It seems like with spending more money on every day “luxuries” is always adding more things to take care of and manage in life. I’m a Jewish minimalist so what I mean here: I am careful of the things I bring to my life because I know it means time and energy I will devote to the new item. The Jewish part I mention because I had a rabbi tell me: do you really think Noah got 2 of every animal onto the arch? No, the things we read are not meant to be taken literally, you’re supposed to understand the message from the story and apply it to your own life with your interpretation.
So for me it was easy to translate “rich life” and “bigger life” and “don’t live a smaller life than you need to” into “what is my ideal way to spend my time and energy?” “Don’t live a life full of fear or based on the expectations or dreams of others that prevent you from living the life YOU want”.
To me money = freedom. Freedom to spend it EXACTLY how I want to. This means being able to donate money and solve “$1000 problems” (thanks Kiersten and Julien). My “bigger life” isn’t a bigger house with fancy vacations and nice luxury things. Some of those may be sprinkled in but it’s the sauce that goes on top of the meal or a small side. It’s not the main attraction for me.
I want to share some anecdotal stories of staying at these luxury hotels. This year I have stayed in 3 hotels for work that were $1000+ per night (not with our group rate but as a normal person than was the cost). You show up and are greeted by a team of friendly people saying “welcome to the property, so happy you could be here” and checked in without a wait and with ease. Someone hand delivers the luggage to the room and offers to get you ice when you first arrive. The rooms are all usually very nice compared to my usual Hampton inn and they have a fancy espresso machine in the room. The bathrooms are typically bright and clean and have showers with tall shower heads (v important remember the Ninjas are tall). Before bed every night there is turndown service where they leave a chocolate on the pillow and turn the TV to a classical music station. They put all of your toiletries onto a towel on the counter in the bathroom. There are always fresh towels. When walking around the property you always see someone tending even the smallest weeds in the gardens, picking up every piece of trash. The pools are incredible and there is always a lounge chair available. You can get as many towels as you want so one for a pillow and one to cover the chair is a very reasonable request. Someone comes every 15-30 minutes to take your drink or food order if you would like but otherwise states a polite distance away. The restaurants are very nice.
Okay so now you have the beautiful part they try to sell you on. Now for my thoughts as I go through this. It is very uncomfortable to be waited on hand and foot for days on end. I feel terrible that these people are not treating me like their equal and I know it is their job and they are being paid to provide these services but it feels so strange. The bed isn’t quite as comfy as my bed at home. Everything feels so manufactured for perfection but it all feels kind of fake. I like the real depth to life not just the pristine and perfect parts. I don’t feel like myself when walking around because what if I touch something that breaks the facade? I feel like I have to speak properly and play a part of a fancy lady when really I would rather be hiking. There are so many luxury stores at these resorts and I haven’t even stepped foot inside because I’m not a shopper personally and that whole section of the property stresses me out. You are so separated from the local culture of the place you are visiting it kind of feels like a waste in some ways.
For my plan going forward: these resorts are very nice and on my vacations it could be nice to stay here for 2-3 nights but I would also like to sprinkle in the Airbnb in the heart of downtown or in a unique location. I like privacy too and you don’t feel like you get privacy in the big resorts. I don’t have a desire for all of my vacation to be spent in these locations, I want my vacations to feel rejuvenating and like me not like a fake version of me.
I want to add: if this sounds like your dream vacation I am not here to yuck your yum or judge you at all! I was just trying to demonstrate that for ME it’s not my ideal way to spend my vacation.
your experience of the fancy joint lines up with mine, which i had only once! for our honeymoon 10 years ago we rented a house for a month, right near the beach on the caribbean side of costa rica. it was amazing in its proximity to gorgeous nature places but not fancy. we ate at local restaurants and rode our bikes everywhere and went snorkeling every day.
while we were there, an app my husband had written went viral and made a few thousand bucks. we had ridden our bikes past a fancy hotel a few times and decided to stay for a few nights as a honeymoon within a honeymoon. we packed up backpacks and rode our bikes to the hotel and when we got there, red and sweaty, they immediately handed us ice cold coconut and passionfruit smoothies with orchid garnishes.
our room was all white and air conditioned and every morning we went down for a truly massive breakfast of fruit, bread, cheese, rice and beans, eggs, smoothies, pastries, and coffee. then we’d go to the pool or down to the beach club to lounge on outdoor beds and have drinks brought to us all day.
it was great for 3 days but i felt out of place the whole time. like i kinda couldnt believe they let us in since we arrived on broke down bikes and not in range rovers like everyone else who was there. i recall my husband saying one day as he laid on a beach bed and sipped an ice cold drink, “i bet this is how prince feels every day.”
it was weird 
but i would do it again!
ETA a CW for some ableist framing in this piece
this came across my feed and feels relevant (gift link)
Not yucking my yum at all @ginja_ninja ! I’ve never stayed in a really high end place but I have in lower end all inclusive type places. For me the appeal of really high end places is: views of nature, amenities (read: hot springs/spas), comfort, food, service, and just general attention to detail.
The nature thing is huge because I often can’t do that much in a day, so I spend a lot of time at the actual hotel which is usually kind of meh. BUT in a really extravagant place the actual hotel is so stunning and there are so many views on the actual grounds that it’s like, part of the excitement and travel! There are lots of areas I can’t hike (including “easy” hikes) but if I could stay in a fancy mountain resort or whatever then at least I could see them! I would want to stay in resorts in the desert, in the mountains, on the sea, etc. Food is big too because I love fine dining, but the other thing is that the resorts I’d like to visit all have natural hot springs or super elaborate water spas and treatments and those feel amazing on my body. Making the hotel part of the destination would basically enable me to enjoy the trip at a pace I can physically handle without feeling like I’m missing out (i.e. how it feels when you’re stuck in a tiny unremarkable room and have spent thousands on a trip to a destination you’re not actually seeing).
This is the exact same reason I love cruises. People definitely don’t consider cruises real traveling, but if you have pain and mobility issues cruises are the shit and they are super accessible. You get to see views you can’t see any other way (if hiking is out) and your room is right there in the mix with all the other fun stuff. So if you go “out” of your room to go to the hot tub and you need to turn right back around and go back to bed, you can! It’s easy. The appeal with higher end hotels and stuff is definitely the level of service too (like way wayyyy better food options in-room), which plays somewhat into how much time is spent in room. I love attention to detail, too. Like I love how a higher end place feels because I notice all those little things that are not attended to in more low end places, or even mid range.
I also think accepting hospitality is very culturally tied. I’m from a very strong hospitality culture and when I have people over I tend to really wait on them and anticipate their needs. I love doing it. For me it’s like a pure expression of welcome put into action and in my family we even do it with each other according to hierarchy-- so I get waited on by some people in my family but I also wait on some people in my family. I also genuinely loved being a waitress and never found that kind of, pomp and formality to be degrading at allllll. I sort of love it! I actually find it much easier in terms of interactions because the rules are so clear and consistent. If I were able bodied I could even see going back to school for hospitality! I think there is such a delicate art to gracious hosting. So, I think when I’m on the receiving end I don’t see it as the person being lower than me either? Or prostrating themselves? I mean obviously I have more money if they are the worker and I’m the patron, but I don’t feel funny about it in the way I know a lot of people do. Because I would enjoy doing that as well, I guess? And I think because really spectacular service is almost unnoticed, in a good way, it’s like you just always have everything you want and things are just easy. So much in my life feels really hard, so I cherish ease. I especially love to not have to qualify what I want and constantly fight for why I deserve it, or convince people and then also have to explain why I want it, and why their alternative solution wouldn’t work, etc. In a high end hospitality setting it’s a given that my needs and requests will be honored without question, and that’s such a rare an incredible thing. I think that’s how I try to be to guests in my home too! I am always careful to tip a lot as well, because the economic imbalance is real for sure.
But that said I totally get why it wouldn’t be a lot of people’s cups of tea. This is anecdotal obv but I have known several people who grew up with a lot of money and felt very bitter about their families choosing to stay in high end places when they traveled. They felt kind of cheated, it seems like? Even though most people grow up not going on international trips at all, lol. But it’s like they feel bitter that they weren’t really getting an authentic experience and also that it was a kind of cop out, or like the purpose was only to be around other rich foreign people, etc. So I think there’s baggage there for some too, even if it is very much a champagne complaint it seems to trigger a lot of super negative emotions in some. And I think that can also turn to a source of pride in “local living” type travel, or temporarily roughing it, etc.
The whole framework for the author’s shifted perspective/newfound gratitude is told through her observing her young daughter’s multiple surgeries and hospitalizations- lots of references of medical stuff and very much bystander focused inspiration since the person going through it is a child and also not the writer. Just fyi if you want to skip! 
But please no one feel the need to delete or anything, I just wasn’t expecting it and hit super close to home! I’d skip the comments sections if you’re bothered by this stuff too; an outpouring of support almost exclusively for caregivers, as that’s who most people relate to in the story! Also many back-and-forth comments with adults sharing their children’s intimate medical details publicly and discussing how difficult it is for them, the parents, to deal with. *
Me too, but on his tab please! 
oof thanks for adding the content warning! i will add it to the original link too.
i think what resonated with me in that article was the idea of appreciating normal days, not just peak ones.
I totally agreed with that part! I think it’s really important, and I liked how she mentioned mindfulness and also the importance of small beautiful things. Like how every day shouldn’t be a 10 because actually 3s and 4s are really important too, like little daily luxuries and nice moments.
right! like im on my heating pad right now sipping a cup of strong hot milky black tea and there’s nothing unusual about it but man it feels luxurious!
i loved reading your perspective on hospitality and how you like to travel. cruises arent for me bc there’s just too many people but i get what you are saying about everything you want or need to do being easily accessible or at least accessible.
my version of that is to rent a nice apartment or hotel room that i actually like to spend time in – preferably with a hot tub or nice big bath – and go for small outings and then go chill back at my space.
when a restaurant or hotel really has their shit together, it feels like great theater – like you can just show up and enjoy. i have been in situations where it felt weird power-dynamics-wise and in some where it doesnt feel that way at all. i dont have a clear idea on what separates those experiences tho!
I love things like that! I find mindfulness to be kind of like magic for transforming a lot of things! I definitely feel that way about food prepping and cooking, but that’s easy for me because I naturally love it. I find for me it’s easiest to be mindful when what I’m doing is a sensory/physical thing rather than a thinking thing? Actually that’s probably why I prefer walking meditation, huh, I literally just figured that out in this moment, lol.
I think renting a place is really cool because of the cooking factor! I’ve done that when staying with a friend in another country and also when doing camper van trips abroad (ours had a small kitchen). I LOVE grocery stores in other places and I simply must sample some of the local salty snacks.
For cruising I totally get it and it’s a hard sell for a lot of people! I was working on one of my closest friends, lol, who was very cruise averse and also disabled and I’m like DUDE YOU ARE MISSING OUT. Hers was also about the size and number of people but I was telling her about these fancy cruises that are like, 40 people, and some of them go down rivers, others are oceans, but I was showing her how we can see stuff that is impossible to see otherwise, like fjords, jungles, icebergs, mountains, the amalfi coast, etc, and that totally got her, haha.
I’m pretty sure she wants to do the fjords cruise with me now, lol. Selling that to my husband will be interesting, “sure a romantic cruise would be nice…or we could go with my friend R who is so high energy and intensely positive she makes me look like a sleepier version of Eyeore.”
Eyeore. Get it everyone? I brought it back to a Ramit archetype. Boom roasted.
ETA: Oh and I also want to go on one of those fancy overnight trains because it would be a perfect way to see mountains! There’s one that goes through the Alps and I think I will be rich enough to ride it someday. One whole compartment is glass.
hmm now a small fjord cruise sounds great. as does a yacht just for me and my friends
i took amtrak from denver to san francisco one time and there was a glass car! i sat in it all day and all night as we went through the rockies to salt lake city and then through the desert to california. it was magical! it was just amtrak food, sadly, but i stocked up on good snacks and it was very fun.
That’s awesome!!! I think any snacks would feel decadent while blasting through scenery in a glass tube.
I havent gone anywhere “exciting” but we took a train from Melbourne to Perth through Adelaide when I refused to get on a plane (uh, havent been on one since) and i highly recommend train travel! Watching the stars go past from our tiny room was amazing.
This latest episode went all over the place. I have no idea what this couple is going to do to dig out of their debt!! And I don’t think they do, either! It seems like they’re checking boxes: house, dog, cars. I don’t know what their interests are outside of owning stuff?