Status ponds are more important than we realize. How we feel at any given moment is surprisingly linked to the pond we’re in. For example, research shows that people in the top one percentile of wealth—one percenters who make at least $600,000 a year—frequently complain of feeling poor and stretched. This is because they usually live around other one percenters. So they focus on what they don’t have compared to their peers. It leads these objectively rich people to believe that they are subjectively poor.
