Originally Posted by Relentless

It's not strange at all. Wealthy people have absolutely zero pressure on them... which is a very difficult thing for a 'normal person' to even imagine.

Think about what it would be like to wake up tomorrow morning at whatever time you like, with pretty much whoever you want to be with, at any location you prefer to be in and have an entire day preplanned for you and arranged for you by other people to be exactly what you would enjoy most. Now imagine during that day you are golfing on the Hawaiian isle of Lanai and your caddy shows up holding your bag of clubs. Why in the world wouldn't you be completely at ease and absolutely nice to him? Why not treat him like a peer? You already have everything you could ever want and he is no threat to any of that. His success has no bearing on your own, and all he wants to do is help you enjoy your day for a meaningless amount of money - something you have so much of that you can not possibly spend it during your lifetime or the lifetimes of your heirs. The level of accomplishment far exceeds the level of ambition.

On the other hand, "barely rich people" feel the world owes them respect. They need to try to demonstrate some kind of superiority because deep down they know how fragile their own position really is - and they know that it can all be gone in a puff of smoke with a single incident like a divorce, or a night of driving home from a party after having too much to drink, or a tax audit. The level of ambition far exceeds the level of accomplishment.