Was it Worth it?

Ive been doing some reflecting again...

As I'm sure Ive mentioned before, throughout my life, I seem to have repeatedly and reliably chosen a path of greater experience over greater wealth. Which is to say that Ive made choices that have sacrificed my financial gain in favour of my experiential gain.
And, if asked why I believe Id have always said that the intent has been "self improvement" as a higher priority than wealth.
And there are plenty of people who would have made a more or less opposite choice believing wealth to be of higher value since it can be translated at any time into "opportunities for personal growth" at will... And again there are plenty of other people who would have chosen entirely other paths like fame and power and friends and family etc etc etc... There are a large list of human motivations and every one of us makes our own "priority list" of them and applies them to our life choices in our own special ways :)

Right but to get to the point of this post... After 50 years of making my choices in more or less the same way, the question arises... Was it Worth it?

Which is essentially asking what have I achieved with my choices that I would not have achieved other-wise? But that of course is a very difficult thing to assess sine we can each only live one set of choices... We cant know with any real confidence what turns our lives would have taken if we'd made even a single significant life choice differently let alone half a century of accumulated life choices... No real surprise there though.

However, in direct comparison to the "other" contender for choices that I mentioned, the "cost" of my choices is actually easier to measure in a probably not too inaccurate a way... My choices have very likely reduced my accumulated net worth by between $500K and a million dollars (over the course of a 25 year career in engineering). And of the other choices of "priority structure" I have no idea how to measure the differences???

... But are there any real "choices" for any of us anyway???... We are who we are and it seems to me that our individual "priority structures" stem largely from our personalities and then get somewhat molded by our experiences through life... But we don't really get to choose our personalities or even as far as I can tell to make any real changes to them anyway.
Which is to say,  I cant think of anyone who Ive ever met who has "changed" in any significant way during their life... ever!

... And, I'm a perfect example to look at... because I'm a case that self declares as having generally prioritized experience and growth opportunities in my life... Sure there are plenty of people who take those sort of choices a lot further than I do but as a "moderate" example, I would hope that after 50 years of trying it, I would have achieved some measurable "growth" or change!

But, I don't think I can...
Now of course I feel that I am very much the same me as Ive always been; as Ive always felt... That's what everyone feels about themselves I expect... Its kind of the definition of "being"... a continuous stream of consciousness, yes?
But what I mean is that I don't think Ive changed my personality in any chosen direction. And nore do I feel that Ive done anything at all of any significance that affects other people or the world in any way that's any different from anyone else.
And if that's the case, then whats the point of "collecting" all the experiences?... Am I a better person for it? Do I feel that Ive "Improved"?  Am I "better" than someone else (terrible way to think) or "better" than the old me? Have I done anything useful (or dis-useful for that matter?) ... What the hell is the point of the experiences if they don't get put to use to achieve some-thing?... Perhaps I may as well have put my efforts toward collecting dollars, or collecting friends, or maybe it would have been just as useful to collect a life sized pile of stones for that matter?... maybe counting grains of sand at the beach would have been just as effective a life?... How do we tell?  ... I'm sure that kind of question lingers in the back of most of our minds in a nebulous way for much of our adult lives... or maybe its just those of us with too much time on our hands and nothing better to do :)

I think the general wisdom is that we are successful if we are happy, and the choices we make are really just about trying to balance immediate happiness against future happiness (or minimization of unhappiness... though of course those two things are not really on the same scale since its quite possible to feel both of the emotions at the same time derived from the same "source")

What then did I get out of all those choices other than simply to reinforce me being Me?

... in progress :)