I read an article in USA Today recently whose headline was “85 richest now have as much money as poorest 3.5B”. After reading it, I learned that this gap between the very rich and the very poor was only going to keep widening over time given its current trend. What saddens me the most about hearing this is how those richest could make such a huge impact in reducing much of our world’s poverty if they chose to. But then I thought about why I never tried to make any type of impact on it when I had a tremendous amount of money many years ago and the simple answer was greed and selfishness.
The truth is I had only two concerns in my life when my net worth was over one million dollars: what lavish ways could I spend my money and how was I going to continuing making even more of it. For approximately five years or so I did just that where all of my actions during that time period were grounded in nothing more than that greed and selfishness. Sure there were probably a few times here and there when I donated a small amount of it to a charity or someone else in need, but it never put any type of dent in my bank account nor with the level of poverty on this planet either. Karma eventually came back around though in 2010 to teach me an extremely invaluable spiritual lesson. After losing a bed and breakfast I owned and the $600,000 in cash I had invested into it, I began walking a path with a much greater appreciation for having much less in the financial realm in life. My life is far more humble now than it ever used to be, which has led me to wonder if those 85 richest people in the world know what true humility is.
You see the more money I had in life, the more I got blinded from the good it could do with things such as reducing poverty and the more I also walked away from experiencing humility. While I’m sure many of those 85 richest people experience a little humility by giving at least a million dollars to various charities each year, there’s an interesting fact when it comes to their annual donations. Take for example someone such as Bill Gates. If he were to donate 1 million of his dollars to a charity every single day, it would actually take him 218 years to exhaust all of his money. But ironically, that would never happen either because his money actually makes well over that amount in interest alone each day.
So when I read that one of those richest individuals in the world, such as Russian mining tycoon Vladimir Potanin, has a net worth of $13.9 billion and spent $95,000 of it on a four pound white truffle, it reminds me of my gluttonous past. It reminds me of the days when I would trade in one brand new car with only a few thousand miles on it for another brand new one just because it was a little shinier and a little more extravagant and really just because I could.
The bottom line is that if the world’s richest gave something like 10% of their net worth to all those in poverty, I’m quite positive the impact on the lives it would change in this world for the better would be immeasurable. Unfortunately, greed and selfishness and also the fear of becoming poor (like I once faced) are the things that will most likely continue driving most of the richest people away from using a large portion of their money to help heal our planet.
But I still have hope for my Higher Power that one day I may see a headline on USA Today that’s just the opposite from the one I recently read. Maybe it will say, “85 richest donate one billion each to help the poorest 3.5B”. Regardless of whether that ever happens or not, I choose to remain humble and free of greed and selfishness by ensuring I never let money rule my life again like it once did. And I pray that my Higher Power will continue to guide me on all the ways I can make my own impact on reducing the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
This is the very biggest issue I have with the US leadership today. Democracy has failed, and we have become a plutocracy – a land governed by merchant princes. The only way to stop people from voting like dumb sheep in the current environment is to get them to exercise economic pressure. Unfortunately, when no one wants to stop the buy-buy-buy/spend-spend-spend cycle, and when buying is driven by what’s advertised on Faux News, there is no hope for it. Bernie Sanders is the last sane voice in the Congress, to be honest.
I guess I should start going to the polls more often and vote then. 🙂
I have one sister who retired at 52. She did everything right – she got one degree, got one job, and one husband, and stayed with the job for 32 years. She maxed out her 401k for 32 years, and she bailed just before a massive project that probably could have killed her with the stress.They have a house, 3 or 4 acres of land, two Harley Davidsons, and the freedom to go wherever they will. Life is groovy.
The other sister never completed college, nor did her husband. Sue had a reasonably good job for 18 years, until she got injured on the job. The hospital she worked for and the doctors in her network screwed her at every turn – and she’s gone from making $18/hr to $8 – and then back up to $10-ish. Her husband is a no-skills laborer, who was unemployed for nearly 8 years. They are hanging by a thread, and medical issues have just been clobbering them. They are examples of what is wrong with the current “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” mentality of the Republican right – what the hell do you do when your arm is broken, and the bootstraps have snapped off? Somewhere along the line, compassion has died in this country, and all we have is posters of Charlie Sheen “winning” and Nike bumper stickers. And it sickens me.
Can you imagine though if every person who had a net worth of 100 million or more was required each year to donate 10% of it to the poor in this world? It just saddens me how selfish I see our world being still in so many ways and how it’s even growing in some cases… 🙁