Man In The Car Paradox

When you see someone is driving a nice car, you rarely think, "Wow, the guy driving that car is cool." Instead, you think, "Wow if I had that car people would think I'm cool." Subconscious or not, this is how people think.

There is a paradox here: people tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be linked and admired. But in reality those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don't think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired.