Money can buy comfort. That part is obvious.

What people don’t talk about is what money does when comfort is already solved. When pressure drops and time opens up. When you have enough room to choose what you actually want.

That’s when money stops being a reward and becomes a test.

I first noticed this through a friend who lived in Dubai. He was rich even by Dubai standards. Huge apartment. Everything expensive. On paper it looked like winning.

But when I spent time with him, what I felt wasn’t envy. It was drift. No partner, no close friendships, no craft, no hobby that required patience. Just a loop of work, screens, buying things, repeating.

What stayed with me most were his watches. A drawer full of them. Rolex. Patek. AP. Perfect condition. Almost interchangeable.

But he didn’t love watches. He didn’t know the history. He didn’t talk about movements. He didn’t wear them at home. He wore them only when he went out.

Not for himself, but for the room.

When you don’t know what you’re building, money gives you something easy to build: an image. Each purchase gives a small hit of anticipation, a feeling of progress. Then it fades and you repeat it.

People call this abundance. It isn’t abundance, it's emptiness with options.

But then there’s the other side. Because money doesn’t only go wrong when people drift. It can also go wrong when people have a clear goal that isn’t questioned.

My uncle is the pure version of the “made it” story. Started with nothing. Worked hard. Outsmarted the competition. Built real wealth. At first his goal was simple: a million in the bank. No luxury. No distractions. Just the target.

He got there.

And then the question that never gets posted on Instagram arrived: now what?

So the goal became a yacht. He worked harder. Bigger swings. More pressure. During that climb he divorced and lost connection with his kid.

But he got the yacht. A massive one. Then it was the next logical step: a plane. Same pattern. Bigger scale. More chasing.

At some point, he stopped. Not because he failed. Because he finally asked a clean question: What am I going to do with a plane?

It sounds almost funny, but that question has teeth. Because it points to the thing most people avoid: goals don’t end. They expand.

If you don’t question the direction, money will always find a new milestone to chase. Not because you need it, but because chasing is familiar.

And the scary part is that money makes chasing easier to justify. It makes obsession look like ambition. This is why money can be dangerous at the exact moment people think it will save them.

Pressure gets removed, but confusion stays. Or pressure stays, but direction becomes a treadmill. In both cases, money doesn’t give you freedom. It funds whatever pattern already exists.

Eventually my uncle slowed down. Not in a dramatic “I found myself” way. Just quietly. He started enjoying life more. Exploring. Building real connections. Researching himself. Living instead of chasing. And that’s the part that stuck with me. Not the yacht. Not the idea of “having it all.”

The fact that even someone who wins the money game can still end up asking: what is this for?

Money doesn’t fix the gap between your life and your values. It only exposes it. If your goals are hollow, money accelerates the emptiness. If your goals are real, money buys space to live them. But money can’t decide your direction for you. It can only make the consequences of your lack of direction more expensive.

Money makes distraction affordable.