Successful people often keep working to increase their wealth, accumulating far beyond anything they could possibly spend and more than they want to bequeath. One day I asked a wealthy friend why this is so. His answer was that many people who have gotten rich know how to measure their self-worth only in material terms, so they stay on the hedonic treadmill of earning and acquiring, year after year. They hope that at some point, they will finally feel truly successful, happy, and thus ready to die. But it never works.
