On being rich

I post status messages on my Facebook page. I like the idea of sharing some positive thoughts that could inspire people to become better. One time, I posted this thought, and it became viral: “Don’t envy the rich. They’re blessed with the ability to create wealth. While their wealth may be in money, you may be blessed in other areas that the rich don’t have or can’t do. We are all experts, but only in different subject matters.”

Envy is a killer. There are people who keep on bad-mouthing rich people. This isn’t a good thing. Their sour-graping will only make conditions for them worse. Any person is worthy of our respect, no matter the size of his or her pocketbook.

Poor people have poor people’s problems, and rich people have rich people’s problems. Not all rich people can deal with the challenges of poor people, and not all poor people can deal with the gigantic problems of the rich. So why envy?

Let me give you some realizations about rich people based on my research and on my experience. Do you know that many rich people aren’t very good at being rich? Wealth has a way of producing strange and odd and out-of-the-ordinary people. They’re rich, so we call them “eccentric,” but given the same condition but without the money, we would’ve labeled them as insane or ridiculous or weirdos.

Wealth has side effects. I wonder, though, if they were odd that’s why they became rich, or they’ve become rich that’s why they became odd?

Don’t get me wrong. There are extremely rich people who are wise, kind and generous. I happen to know many of them; they live very simple lives. But there are also rich people who are plagued with discontentment. The accumulation of stuff has become an appetite which can never be fully satisfied.

I used to love eat-all-you-can buffets. I would even skip breakfast so I could eat as much as I wanted come lunch. But here’s my observation: when I’m used to eating a lot, I get hunger pangs and cravings more, but now that The Ilocana and I have been following a strict veggie-and-low-carb-to-no-carb diet, I find myself not having as much cravings.

Here’s the deal: you feed your appetite, and it’ll grow. It’s like Chinese food – the more you eat Chinese food, the more Chinese food you’d want to eat. But starve your appetite, and it shrinks.

When you’ve got lots of money to spend, you invariably increase your appetite and buy more stuff. This is true for some rich people. And they like doing upgrades. Upgrade is taking something that works perfectly fine and replacing it with a new one with more features just because you have the money to do so. Does this remind you of the gadget you’re holding? Owning several smart phones doesn’t make one smarter, does it?

Popular speaker and author Andy Stanley said: “Rich people drive their cars to a dealer’s lot. They leave their car and their money, and drive away with a newer one. They go into a kitchen. They rip it all out. And they replace it with another one. They go to a mall, they get in line. They hate lines, but as they go to the Apple store, they text their friends using their iphone, telling them that they’re in line for the new iPhone. And then they have two.”

Rich people stand in front of their closets which are full of clothes, and say, “I don’t have anything to wear!” This is so untrue; the only persons who can legitimately say that they don’t have anything to wear are Adam and Eve.

The truth is that some rich people like gathering stuff. And some feel good about throwing out stuff in perfectly good condition just to make way for newer stuff. Even their garbage disposals eat so well – so well they can feed a small village!

As one gets richer and richer, his appetite for stuff can also get bigger and bigger. We have to be good at being rich, not at being weird. The latter involves two principles:

1. Godly contentment is great gain. Be spiritually filled with the presence of God in your life.

2. The purpose of being wealthy is to help those in need. Invest in the eternal, because naked we came from our mother’s womb, and naked will we depart from this world.

Live a simple life. Love God and help your neighbors. Don’t be too engrossed on having everything. Where are you going to put them anyway?

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