When you have it all

Imagine you've just finished college. And you're turning 21. Your family is celebrating your coming of age. The elite of the community gather, in full force, to congratulate and formally welcome you into their circle.

Your new professional status is not much of a point here. The occasion is actually about your having qualified yourself, being of legal age now, to acquire a part of the vast family fortune. You now have access to an inexhaustible reservoir of wealth that others your age could only distantly dream of.

There's more money at your disposal than anyone could ever earn or spend in a lifetime. Enjoying all the world's luxuries is now simply like buying cheaply candies at the corner store. You could traverse the globe everyday if you like.

Champaign will flow and gorgeous girls will come running, anytime you want. People vow before you, including those you don't know. You're always treated in a special way - you have money!

Then, suddenly, you're not sure what to make of it all. You pinch your arm, to be sure it's for real. You did not sweat a bit to make this kind of money; it's just handed down to you.

 Everybody can only wish of a life of such unimaginable riches and luxuries. But certainly not Jamie Johnson of Johnson and Johnson, or Ivanka Trump of the Trump Properties, or Patricia Hearst of the Hearst media empire - to name just some. From the beginning, they have everything going for them: they went to the best schools, trained in all the finer arts, and, most of all, were introduced to all the right people.

The rest of us ordinary mortals are made to believe that everything a man has is earned. The only question is - Who earned the immense wealth of some people? Usually it's the parents or grandparents. All that the young ones do is inherit.

Many of today's young heirs and heiresses are becoming anxious about the voodoo of inherited wealth. They are being dipped into it unprepared, and they are scared that they may only ruin themselves in the process. There seems to be some kind of curse to it working beneath the surface.

Time and again we hear of tycoons sinking themselves into a lot of ugly things. Legal battles, ruined marriages, horrible vices, family ties undone by business rivalry. The kind of problems only truly mastered by the very rich.

For the young, it's not easy living in the family's shadow. There's much less freedom to do what one really likes to do with his life. And personal security is a crucial issue. The young ones are often so much sheltered that their full growth as persons is restrained.

Those that wallow in utmost privilege tend to lose their touch with reality; they think that the world operates according to the concepts they hold in their heads. Many wealthy kids rebel by disobeying their parents, sometimes to the point of dishonoring the very name that had been so carefully built and cared for by many generations of elders.

 Some young inheritors openly malign the process by which their families amassed wealth. Though perfectly legal, they see it as unfair and corrupt, and their elders as crooks. They don't have the smallest gratitude for the people who caused all the fortunes they are presently enjoying.

When you have it all, it can feel like you have nothing at all. Living can become all too easy and everything so attainable, such that life can feel as unreal as a dream. You become quite unsure of yourself, you feel like there's nothing much about you beneath the cover of wealth, and that, of and by yourself, you have no meaning.

Life at the top can be lonely, very lonely. It's so hard to find true friends up there; everyone tries to put up a nice face for you. Everybody is suspect of being there only for your money.

Not that having a lot of money is a bad thing, but that one can get drowned in it. Of course, riches can be a real advantage as well. With it, one can afford to become the best that he can be, to polish his abilities and refine his personal culture, and, most of all, enhance his own humanity.

(E-MAIL: [email protected])