Thriving

[mntleo2]

20. Personally, I do feel there is something wrong with wealth

...but then I was raised where there was a distinct line between the haves and have-nots. My parents were blue collar class and the people around us were so poor, we were the "haves". I did not realize any of this until I was older. A strange unity among ALL of us about those in our community who were "rich" they were distanced from the rest of us with suspicion. I remember my childhood friends covertly making fun of them for their greed.

My religion did not help either where greed is considered quite a deadly sin. I still agree with that. Greed damages so many millions, it is killing our planet, it is what causes so much war and sadness. Yet the greedy refuse to see the damage they do and still the damaged aspire to be like them, even using God to justify this greed. This I truly cannot understand when it is so obvious to me as to the horrible consequences of greed. It angers me to use God or "the Universe" or Whomever as some sort of "reason" to believe that you should have more than anyone else.

Excuse me if I have told this story before but it is always a good one to revisit when it comes to thriving and what it means.

I used to have a very wealthy friend (heir to the Red Lion Inn fortune) who was good for all he had learned to be, but in the end, I could not stand the obsession with making money nor the ignorance about those in poverty. He did not realize he was keeping me around as a sort of curiosity, a person to be kind to so he could sort of assuage his own guilt at having so much ~ and this was during the "greed is good" times in the 1990s when being proud of having money was a "virtue". It was about politics I thought when I gave up on him, of course he was a Republican. But in truth it was from him I began to realize the danger of thinking you know it all when you have it all was so hurtful to so many. Worse I could see that this was a practiced ignorance, deliberate blindness. There was little anyone, including me who wanted to love him for who he was, could do to take off the blinders.

One time during a conversation about the stock market and all its glory, I kind of surprised myself with an insight I did not know I had. I said, "You know, all you people are doing is shuffling virtual papers around in the ether. If our society suddenly did not value that, it would be worth what is is ...nothing, just air. Like diamonds which we know there are more of than the common crystal, if suddenly everyone decided they were just rocks, that is all they would be. All your riches would be worthless because right now you are rich because others just think you are rich"

A look of pure horror came over his face and then as quickly he dismissed it as absurd. Nobody would ever do that, it could never happen. But for a VERY interesting moment I was privy to that terror, that gnawing fear, and to be honest, it was pretty sad to witness about a nice man quite comfortable with far more than he needed already.

And while I know I also had that fear for a far better reason than his, it was still ugly to know it was inside me too after I saw it in him. Right then I realized, I did not want to be that way and what little of that fear I had, I had to get rid of it if I could. It has not been easy and therefore "considering the lilies of the field" is not an easy thing to do, nor is it always wise thing to do, one just has to know their limits and needs, and when simply enough is enough.

My 2 cents

Cat in Seattle