God yes.

Like I wanna make a lot of money, don't get me wrong. I'm in sales, and trying to get into account management for that reason. There is a saying in the industry, that salesman only need money because it's the ultimate form of validation. I don't have a college degree; in a lot of ways saying "I made X amount last year" is the only real way to show my professional accomplishments.

In middle school and high school I remember this game we'd play. Big Bank takes Little Bank. You would challenge someone, or they'd challenge you. If you accepted, you'd both take all the money out of your wallet, and whoever had more got all of it. It was high risk, high reward, especially since a lot of the people playing had no business risking their money like this. All they were banking on is that they were better at hustling.

To me it's like a much more responsible version of that. I'm banking on my own ability to succeed, in spite of my position. I want to make a lot of money... but it's not like I care about stuff. Most of the clothes I own don't have labels. I drive a 20 year old Mercedes. I'm pretty sure my next car will be an older, cheap truck. I don't own a fancy computer. When my house was broken into, the first thing I asked about was my comics. Even the house I live in, it's in disrepair. Until a few months ago the power would go out frequently due to flooding in the basement. But I enjoy living here because I can work on fun projects like tearing up old carpet, or taking down dead tree's.
My dream house is small and easy to maintain, older and a bit of a fixer upper, with a lot of land that I can use to garden, have chickens, a bunch of dogs, and maybe build a porch or patio.
I'm not a miser about my money. I spend it frequently on friends, booze, books, dining, my dog, etc. But I don't want to make a lot of money to buy stuff just for the sake of having it. I just want to make a lot of money to prove that I can.