I appreciate you calling it out. Writing that meant a lot to me. What is cool, is it now means more to me. It means more to me now because I now know it means something to someone else.
If humans do not tame the ego, we risk turning into savages that will consume the world and we risk consuming ourselves with greed. This is easy and probable if I am under the delusion I am "the best" and under the delusion "no one can beat me."
Materialism is pervasive and unrelenting. Having more is more fun. Life is better with money. It is easier to find things that make your life worth living if you have more money. Money is a resource. The more you have the more you can "do" in this life. Money IS addictive.
But money does not make you do anything. Money does not ALWAYS give you what you need. Money is not what defines us as humans. Money is not what makes me decide if I am going to be a MAN. I decided that.
When I am being true to myself, when I am at my best, in these moments, I am my number 1 fan and my number 1 critic.
Taming the ego is necessary. And it gets harder the more you have. Life is fun but I am not sure it ever gets "easy." If things get easy, I am doing something wrong.
I like to remember something Mike Tyson said about money and values. He said that Don King, his promoter, would sell his mother for a dollar. That exemplifies a horrible misunderstanding of what is valuable to people. People are far more valuable than money.
Money has no value whatsoever outside society, and the good people of society are what gives value to our lives in every way. I believe it was truly stated that the love of money is the root of all evil, because love is a personal relationship that people share. You clearly have realized you value people more than mere money, and lamented the choice to get money by sacrificing good relationships. That is great wisdom, learned the hard way, and likely to benefit you and good people you interact with the rest of your life. I consider that worthy of recognition, even celebration.