This is Optimal Finance Daily, Episode 1813, the real value of money, by Mark Manson of

MarkManson.net. And on your host and personal finance enthusiast, Diana Mariam, I'm featuring

a more rare author for this show. Mark is usually narrated over on Optimal Living Daily.

So if you like his style, you can check out that show. But this one happened to be a good fit

for OFD. So with that, let's get right to it and continue optimizing your life.

The real value of money, by Mark Manson of MarkManson.net.

One summer afternoon, a group of recent college graduates decided to visit their favorite

professor at his home. The grads had been out of school for about a year, and they were each

making their foray into the quote-unquote real world, and dealing with all of the frustrations and

confusion that comes with it. Over the course of the afternoon, the grads complained to their

professor about how difficult life was after school. They complained about the long hours,

the demanding bosses, the competitive job market, and how all anybody seemed to talk about or

care about was money, money, money. After a while, the professor got up and made some coffee.

He got out six cups, one for each student. Three of them were cheap, disposable cups,

and the other three were made of his nicest porcelain. He then invited everyone to get up and

helped themselves. Within seconds, the bargaining had already begun. Wait, why do you get that cup?

No, let me have it. I drove here. No way. I got here first. Go get your own.

The students laughed and gently chided each other over who got to drink what out of what.

A silent competition among friends. When the kids finally sat back down the professor smiled

and said, you see, this is your problem. You're all arguing over who gets to drink out of the nice

cups when all you really wanted was the coffee. Money is a touchy subject. That's because most

of us, to a certain degree, associate a lot of our self-worth and identity with our job and how

...