My daughter, a doctor, is driven. Driven to be rich. Each time I ask her why she’s doing what she’s doing, the answer is the same, “I want to be rich.” I take her answer with a little grain of salt. For one, I cannot take away her desire to be rich and, second, it would be foolhardy for anybody to desire something without a clear purpose of being. It just wouldn’t cut.
She being my daughter, I can understand her burning desire to be rich. I hit bottom in my finances when she was a senior medical student prompting me to borrow from friends so she can take her graduation march. It was a difficult time for the family, with my wife hocking all her pieces of jewelry for us to get by. My son, in his usual quite ways, kept his feelings to himself. I bet he was hurting, too, but wouldn’t let it be known. He is, however, very frugal in his expenses, so I guess he was able to get by without any fuss.
Being the bread-winner of the family, there were times when suicide was a tempting option. My late wife propped me up somehow. She would say that our problems were nothing compared to others’ and that killing myself for lack of money would be the height of stupidity. And I pride myself for not being stupid (well, at least, I think am not).
Anyway, I know how it feels to have nothing. For one thing, you don’t have any options whatsoever. According to Robert Kiyosaki, to be poor is to have no choice, no freedom. And he’s right. You grab anything that comes along daily, notwithstanding your loathing for it. Survival is the name of the game, the choices reduced only to two - survive or perish.
But life is not meant to be a survive-or-perish affair. Life is to be enjoyed to the fullest and nothing would be more hypocritical for one to say that he is happy by just getting by. There was a time when my credit card company called me morning, noon and nighttime for my overdue bills, my children’s allowances were a “toss of the coin affair,” and food on the table consisted of the most meager things I can afford. It was no fun. Had we not had our health and sanity, it certainly would have been pure hell.
So rightly or wrongly, we all need to be rich. How rich is rich? That is entirely a personal matter that I would rather not dwell on.
By rich, I mean not to be like Sultan Bokiah of Brunei or a middle-eastern sheikh with his oil. I would settle for life with manageable debt, a mortgage-free house, children’s education is covered, annual vacation, sufficient food on the table, a nice car, a regular dining out with the family, to be able to pursue one’s passion, to be free of the insecurity of a regular employment, be a member of a club, yet has enough to invest and retirement is not anchored on the charity of my children. To be able to say, “Thank you Lord for all the blessings that you gave me,” instead of “Thank you Lord for all the trials that I am going through.”
As simple as this level of being “rich” is, yet how many of us can honestly say that he/she has all these? As simple as this level of being “rich” is, yet is out of reach for a great many of us, not because of its loftiness but because of our unwillingness to reach out a little higher, push ourselves a little further, try a little harder.
My investment is in more than a year of learning the ropes in Internet marketing. I still have many days to go, but I am getting there. Otherwise, I can honestly say that I have all those and I can thank the Lord every evening for His blessings. Not that I profess to be His favorite. What I’m saying is that I have paid my dues and I am entitled to live my life the way I want it. But you don’t have to wait to become 60 years old to savor life. Like I said, I am not writing this for myself but for many out there who are lost, who know not how to make sense out of their lives, who are wasting their talents on useless endeavors, who know not the distinction between a dream and a plan. This is for you that you, too, may become rich.
Tags: blessings, dream, favorite, internet marketing, plan, profess, rich
