Saturday, June 11, 2011

Rich man, poor man, now and then

Regarding the book "The Science Of Getting Rich" which I posted about recently (ebook for free): reader Anna commented to me:

I am reading the e-book you posted, much more spiritual than what I thought from the title ! :)
I confess I do not agree with the idea that you *have to* get rich in order to have a fulfilling life... But this book was written in 1910 or so. I am actually not rich, but still live in abundance in my opinion, for I can travel and study and have free time, through the possibilities of international scholarships and institutions gave me. So at the time he wrote, the only way to life a fulfilling life doing these kinds of things was to get rich, I guess. So then, for his time, it is absolutely right.

Couldn't have said it better. I was also disagreeing with the author on that point, but it's just that, the book was written before the occurrence of the Middle Class. In olden days, if you were not "rich", you were poor, and you had no leisure time, no time or money to travel or read and such. And I certainly can't disagree that without that, life is poor.

One might say that stressed as most people still are, we are perhaps overlooking the huge blessing it is that a huge proportion of the population in more and more countries are now in this abundant situation, where just a hundred years ago it was a tiny minority.
Of course it's a bit of a pity that many people are wasting this situation in still wanting more and more and more, for reasons they know not what of, and putting themselves in big debts, thus creating the feeling of being poor despite being quite rich.

A different issue is that more and more people these days find that after they get more or less rich, it makes less of a difference than they thought. Those irritating philosophers may be right after all: all good or bad is only inside. Durn those smug bastards.       :-)

Seems to me that money problems is like having a wet shoe in the winter: it's something you want to solve immediately, and when you have the problem, it feels like it's the only problem you have. But when it's solved, the joy is temporary, the real problems sit much deeper.

1 comment:

Raf said...

its a fine line, Im from a western country but Ive gone hungry many times despite a socalled welfare system, I moved to asia to try and improve my employment situation and right now Im hungry and trying to decide what to spend my last dollar on and hoping the landlord will wait a few days till I scrunge up something

but if I have money for food and a secure room Im happy, not much to ask but more then I have had most of my life, and more then what 90% of the planets population has, theres people dying of starvation this moment, and its a painful death