Billionaire Charlie Munger Reveals Key To Wealth, Health And Happiness: Conquer 1 Basic Human Emotion

Throughout almost a century of life experience, billionaire and Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) vice chairman Charlie Munger has discovered the secret to a happy, healthy, wealthy life is learning to recognize and ignore one basic human emotion that weighs people down like an anchor.

Forbes estimates Munger's wealth at roughly $2.4 billion, and he has spent a large portion of his career in the shadow of partner and Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett, who has an estimated net worth of $113.6 billion. However, instead of comparing himself to Buffett or any other billionaire, Munger says he simply focuses on his own financial success.

"Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy," Munger once famously said.

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Better Motivations: Instead of being envious of the possessions and accomplishments of others, Munger says his motivation throughout his career has been to achieve financial and professional freedom. By choosing not to construct and participate in an arbitrary mental competition among himself, Buffett, and all the other billionaires in the world, Munger can truly enjoy his success and not take on unnecessary financial risk chasing a dragon he will never catch.

"The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy," Munger said at the recent annual meeting of the Daily Journal Corporation DJCO.

"I don’t give a damn what someone else has. But other people are driven crazy by it."

Not only is envy a sin, Munger said there's an argument for it being the worst sin of all.

"Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?" he once said.

Envy And Mental Health: Munger has also pointed out the irrationality of envy, comparing the conditions he lived through during the Great Depression to the high living standards of modern times. Despite drastic improvements to the average American's quality of life in the past century, there has been a significant deterioration of mental health, including a rise in anxiety and depression. 

“The fact that everybody’s five times better off than they used to be, they take that for granted,” Munger said. “All they think about is somebody else [has] more now, and it’s not fair that he should have it, and they don’t.”

In fact, Munger once mentioned eliminating envy as one of his six "simple rules" for living a long, happy, successful life:

"You don’t have a lot of envy. You don’t have a lot of resentment. You don’t overspend your income. You stay cheerful in spite of your troubles. You deal with reliable people. And you do what you’re supposed to do."

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Photo: Nick Webb on Flickr.