Our daughter had a pretty good day for her with minimal pain with her periodic fever syndrome .We sat out in the sunshine most of the afternoon and She dug up the whole yard making random dirt and sand towers she decorated with Flower petals and leaves.
I sat and read the Forbes Billionaires Magazine issue because it was on the top of a pile of magazines I’d picked up at our local library for 10 Cents each and I was bored .
My daughter had banished me from picking up a shovel and helping her dig in the dirt and sand due to my inability to make lasting dirt /sand towers so I was informed. My last tower did not have the right structure and had fallen down .
Lucky for the U.S. population I sell vintage clothing rather then build bridges or we’d all be in trouble.
So I Sat reading The Forbes March 2011 Billionaire issue I Bought for 10 cents because it intrigued me. It was good for a few chuckles and some introspective pondering.
I’m not laughing at billionaires, at least not at most of them. There were a couple featured Billionaires who’s “stuff” they had chosed to aquire with their money gave me the giggles . They’ll remain un-named as its Each to his own on the taste scale.
What I guess I’ll never understand after reading it is the amount of time you have to dedicate to get rich.
Sure there’s the fell into it folks who inherited their wealth. There’s the ones that had a bright idea that took off and then they sold the whole mess to a bigger billionaire and Voila their now a billionaire too. Still a lot of them work their whole lives to make money, aquire money, trade money….. Money , Money , Money!
Then they buy more stuff and some of its some pretty funny stuff.
Seems like a silly kind of cycle to me but then who Am I to say whats silly. My idea of a ”rich” life is a couple home run in Pizza’s , a bag of chips and a really good cup of columbian coffee. Not starbucks, Whatever Columbian coffee’s on sale for the week. That and a night of rented movies from redbox or a few on our 7.99 netflix instant play and we all lounge around and hang out together on our recyled Vintage Furniture .
Thats it for me. Hubby and the kids with their beloved animal welfare dogs, some pizza, coffee and redbox. I don’t even have to work that hard to afford it all.
I guess I just don’t get why you’d want to spend your whole life working long hours to aquire a lot of money and to buy a lot of things and then when you die its just so much materialistic leftovers. Pass it onto the next generation so they can work really hard to aquire more and on and on.
Whats so great about more stuff? Why would you want to spend your life working and working when you can dial your lifestyle down and just relax. Are the billionaires with the 26 room homes and jets and gucci and chanel happier then I am with my pizza and movie night?
Maybe thats why a lot of people are envious now of the rich. A lot of people are downright hostile now to the rich. They truly think the rich are somehow happier and better adjusted then they are. and their missing out Are the super wealthy happier? Can money really buy happiness?
I thought about it and this is what I thought but as usual I could be wrong in my presumptions.
The super wealthy spend a Lot of their day working and working and working.
They buy a lot of expensive stuff that when they die doesn’t go with them .
They don’t seem to leave much of an inspiring legacy as the next new start business is right around the corner and You don’t hear much talk about them after their gone. Their not revered like a Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King . I may be missing it But I don’t ever remember people saying Wow that big company from the 50s really inspired me they were the best. (Note: The super wealthy that start off aquiring and aquiring then end up giving and giving don’t fall into this category they get shuffled off into the Revered group of folks who do get mentioned in the history books)
It must be tough to aquire real friends as you’d have to question the motives of anyone they’d call a friend unless they were friends before the wealth came into the picture. Do you Like me or like my money right?
How many of the really rich get to spend time off relaxing with an upscale version of a pizza and movie night and how often? Do they really get a lot of down time? They always seem to be plugged into the business world even when their supposed to be taking time off. Do they ever really have time off? How much is sacraficed at the alter of Materialism.
So next time your feeling a little irked at all those rich people while your having your cook out with the little 4 foot pool you purchased at walmart and your watching the kids chase fireflies while drinking a beer ask yourself why your so irked at them. Ask yourself who’s really the wealthier person in the long run. Ask yourself how much of what you have now and take for granted you’d be willing to sacrafice to make it to the forbes billionaire list.
Would you give up the barbeques and beer nights with friends and family. Would you give up the Cheap hotel trips or camping but your really away when your away and off when your off. Would you give up spending time hugging your kids and being the ones who are there day and night when they need you the most. Would you give up Watching your child make sand and dirt towers decorated with flower petals in the sunshine for a gucci purse and corporate jet? When your irked about their wealth truly think about what they sacraficed to get to the top.
When you really think about it a lot of the stuff they sacrafice to become billionaires is the stuff that truly matters to the rest of us. The Mundane, The Cheap treats , Funny moments that are priceless, The simple Family Fun orientated crazy life of the rest of us ordinary people. Would you really want to give that up? Would more money and stuff be worth the sacrafice of what a lot of us hold to be the most valued?
So really who’s the richer when you compare the two? The Billionaire with the bling or the Average wage earner with their average wage earner life. Why do we resent them or envy them? Whats up with that?
I’ll take our pizza and movie night with our family in our average suburban home with our recyled furniture over the 26 room mansion , fancy stuff , and long work hours anyday .
If basic needs are met and there’s a little extra left over for some cheap family fun Why do we need anything more ?
The funny thing is we Don’t really NEED anything more we just DESIRE more.
So I guess the question really is Whats really missing in a life that makes a person crave more once their basic needs are met.
Why isn’t a pizza and movie night surrounded by the ones you love the most just not good enough to make us content anymore????
