Wealth is mainly divided into three stages. What determines our position is not only the absolute amount of wealth, but also the way we use it.

The first stage is "survival". What drives us is the fear of survival, including the fear of not having enough food and the fear of being homeless.

The mental attitudes of this stage is that we are full of fear of various changes, and dare not try new opportunities such as job hopping, salary increases, etc. A little uncertainty will make us very anxious.

If you are in the survival mode, you will be afraid to do anything uncertain, no matter how small the risk is.

Getting out of this stage depends more on mentality than reality. Confirm that you have the confidence and ability to deal with uncertainty on the premise of ensuring food and clothing.

The second stage is life freedom.

When we reach the second stage, the question we are considering changes from "survival" to "life". How to make ourselves more comfortable, happier and more free?

We are no longer thinking about whether we can live, but how to live better. We will work hard at this stage most of the time, and what determines our position is our understanding of freedom and how we use wealth to obtain freedom.

The first floor: freedom as leisure.

Imagine the life after financial freedom. If the first thing is never going to work and sleeping late every day, this is "freedom as leisure".

The concept of wealth at this stage - all the good things in life come from outside of work, and making money is for the moment when you don't have to work.

At this stage, we think about financial freedom mainly to help ourselves reject what we don't want.

The second floor: freedom in work

We will no longer choose a job we do not like because of high income. And there is a very interesting part in this stage, our demand for materials will be reduced.

At this stage, our wealth will accumulate, but our material desires will decrease. One day, our wealth will exceed the demand, which will be much lower than what we think.

The third floor: freedom in attention

Wealth beyond material desires liberates our attention from money, so that we have more energy to do more meaningful things.

If a super rich man spends all their energy thinking about how much money they have and how to maintain this lifestyle, they will not be rich.

But if ordinary people don't struggle for money because they know they have everything they need, then they are rich.

The financial freedom schedule will be drawn as below. The two ends are red, which represent anxiety. The most comfortable and free position is in the middle.

In the survival stage, having more money can help us stay away from the fear of starvation and homelessness, but leaving this stage depends on confirming our ability and confidence to change.

In the stage of freedom as leisure, having more money can make us more comfortable and enjoy more, but the key to continue to climb is to find the meaning of work and let wealth become the ticket to find freedom.

At last, wealth allows us to further enhance our freedom of attention. However, if we continue to pursue wealth, we will far away from freedom.

Having wealth is very helpful, but the key to helping us achieve real leaps is not wealth itself, but ourselves.

（Writer：Hoock）