For some people, struggle gives purpose, which is why people who are not rich, stay that way because if there is a struggle to survive, they have a purpose in their life. There is nothing worse than a life with no purpose and any purpose will do. Survival is a good purpose, so they maintain their limited financial level to guarantee they have a permanent purpose throughout their life, struggling to survive. For simplicity of the analogies in this article, I will divide everyone into two groups, rich and poor. Poor constitutes anyone who still wants more money.
On the other side of the scale, what are the super rich people doing with their money? They certainly have no need to struggle or worry. This is not exactly the point. Although that gives you a tangible item to look at, the question is ‘why do they keep working and making more money?’
Why does Warren Buffet keep investing, or Richard Branson keep building new companies? Why get into something that takes so much of your time that you cannot read a book or go to the beach or fishing, play golf or whatever your pleasures are. Why undertake a project that will occupy so much of your life that you do not have the freedom to just do whatever you want?
This is what poor people simply do not grasp, the point of working. The desire to do what you enjoy, and if you do what you love the money will come, is not so that you can sleep in late and never have to work.
That is NOT the point of wealth. The super wealthy keep working, they do things with their money because they have to do something. The problem is in poor people’s conception of work. My definition is that work is something you do that you do not want to do but must do for any reason.
The super wealthy do not work. I have been involved in more than 15 business projects since I retired, I say I have not worked, yet people think I worked. I did not have to do any of those projects, I did not need the money, I chose to because I found them interesting.
Another problem is the laziness. Poor people want to be lazy, to just do what they want and not work, that is their idea of being rich. FALSE! That is just being a fat cow in a lush pasture, getting fatter until you die.
The super wealthy are very active in continually CREATING. They create and to average people that is called work since very often it is a business venture, and thus they make more money.
Why do they continue to keep so busy? Understanding this is what makes the difference between success or failure. In order to succeed, you must accept that we cannot just do what is fun, we must do what is necessary in order to be happy which comes when we are producing something. What we produce is secondary, but that we are producing something is what matters.
This is why I disagree with the monastic path for westerners, because that is hiding and we cannot hide from our self and its nature. But the necessity of a suitable school for your individual path is unavoidable. There must be both the active and the contemplative.
I have met many people who are very intelligent and capable, one was even a (non-practicing) doctor, but they cannot make themselves work or do anything, they have lost the motivation to live. The common factor in every case is that they are or feel alone in their life. In every case it is the same, they feel alone and so have lost their energy to move forward and use their mind. This will happen to anyone who aspires to a life of inactivity under the guise of success.
The super wealthy continue to work because they, like everyone else, have no choice, it is the nature of the human being. They know this and follow nature. If you follow nature obediently without objection, conditions or conflict, you will have a good life. This is respect to Nature.
You will find that the super wealthy certainly do it for the money, and enjoy the wealth and power, but that is not the only point. It is for the fun of doing it that is the key difference.
The rich do not think of wealth as the stopping point, they just keep on working, no matter how much money they make. It is not just about the money, and that is the difference, poor people do it for the money. If you do it for the money alone, you will not succeed. But poor people look at the rich, and think the rich just want money and that is not at all a complete truth.
When you want money because it is like a gold star saying you have done a good job, and the more money you get means the better job you did, and you do the best job for the sake of doing the best job and NOT for the money, then you can succeed.
It takes quite a shift for poor people to comprehend this because poor only THINK they understand what I am saying. It takes quite a bit of work to really understand it. Work for the sake of doing the best job you can, and then the rewards come. However, thinking you are and actually being that way are very different. The test is your level of success. If you are not succeeding, then you have the proof that you are motivated by laziness so you can just not work, and that has to change.
Someone asked what I meant with “Poor people want to be lazy, to just do what they want and not work, that is their idea of being rich.” This is the concept of language, what being rich means. To a poor person it means being able to do what they want and enjoy life, go on the boat and fish all day. To a super wealthy person it means having a tremendous amount of more work and obligations. Not as a burden to deal with but an obligation that is also an honor. They are being honored with the privilege of taking care of great wealth and power.
Poor people only think of money to ease their pain and desires, but that is not at all the point of having it, it is to be used to do things, and the things you buy are to help you do more, quicker and better.
When you stop thinking of yourself and do the best you can for the sake of doing the best you can at any job or business, you will succeed greatly. Money does not exist. It is not a thing at all. If I have bread, I eat. If I have a hammer, I can build something. But if I have money and do not know what money is, meaning I have this piece of paper in my hand, what can I do with that?
Think about it this way, I cannot eat a hammer, nor can I build a house with a loaf of bread, but with money, I can eat and build a house and do so much more, even though in itself, that note which we call money, is completely useless. Money only becomes useful when it is used to do things with, which could mean multiply itself so that here is always a plentiful supply to do more things.
Nature tends to give things to the people who will (not just think they will or can) make best use of it. When you view making lots of money and a big success the starting point rather than the ending point of your active business life, then you will find yourself flowing with the stream of life and success should not be far away, if you are sincere.
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Brilliant article. I feel the truth of what you’re saying David. I will read this several times to try to understand the concept of money being the ‘gold star’ after you’ve already put in great effort and done a good job for the sake of doing a good job.
Very interesting perspective. I’ve yet to hear something like this. I’m a wanna be entrepreneur and I’ve become like you said, lazy, I didn’t think of being rich as a honor to take on more responsibilities, but that makes a lot of sense because that’s what I actually want to do with my goals, or that’s what I’ll have to do.
Armed with this new perspective I can go through my day with mindset that I am being honored to take on more task to make the world better.
thank you