by Marty Coleman | Sep 24, 2014 | Well Wealth - 2011 |
The Wealth series continues with a question.
Yes and No
What do you think? Does it? I am torn, not sure if I believe it does or not. I can see it can help with some forms of unhappiness but then again plenty of very wealthy people still suffer from being severely unhappy and the money does nothing to help so I don’t know.
Family
I know my family had probably it’s worst continuous years of unhappiness when we were the wealthiest. In particular my mother’s suffering seemed to get much worse when we had more money, not better. But I don’t really know what it would have been like during those years if we had had less money so it’s hard to pin it on the wealth.
Your thoughts?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote/question is adapted from a quote by Roberto Gervaso, 1937 – not dead yet, Italian political commentator and journalist
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 19, 2014 | Well Wealth - 2011 |
After a bit of time away from drawing I am back on my Wealth Series.
Without
A typical biography will often have a line in it that goes something like this, “We didn’t have much money growing up, but we never felt poor.” Why is that? Why do some poor families feel poor and others not? What is it that divides them?
Who is Wealthy?
Of course, necessities are one thing. People who don’t have a safe roof over their heads, who can’t get enough to eat, likely they feel as poor as they are. But just up from that level of poverty, what about the family who can’t afford vacations or new cars or cable TV or new clothes? Why do one of those families feel poor and another not? I would think often it would be about comparisons made with others. Not necessarily by the kids, but by the parents. The parents might be constantly saying, “I wish we had this, or I wish we could do that.”
The Never Ending Climb
You would think that wouldn’t be a big deal the wealthier you get. But the truth is it gets MORE severe the more money you have. One family takes ski vacations to Aspen, but your family can only afford to ski locally in Vermont. Sounds silly that one would feel deprived, but if the parents are constantly harping on how they can’t afford something then the kids will learn they indeed don’t have enough no matter how much they have.
Appreciation and Gratitude vs Envy
The key for me is appreciation and gratitude. For example, I appreciate my little charcoal grill out back. I don’t look at it and see that I don’t have the same giant gas grill my friend has, I look at it and see the enjoyment I am getting from cooking on it. I am grateful for it. If someday I need a new grill I will figure out how big I need it to be for me and my family and I will do my best to get that grill. But it won’t be because of envy over what someone else has, it will be based on my need and what I can afford. And I will be happy with that.
You can see the entire Wealth Series here
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Epicurus, 341 – 270 B.C., Greek philosopher – Find out more about Epicurus here.
Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 3, 2014 | Anonymous, Well Wealth - 2011 |
Prosperity Doctrine
In American Christianity, there is a sect that preaches what is known as the ‘Prosperity Doctrine’. In essence it says simply, God want you to be prosperous and if you obey him properly you will be. This is actually not a new phenomenon. At the beginning of Christianity you have Jesus preaching again and again about money and it’s trappings. Why did he preach on that? Because it was a big problem in the society he lived in just as it is now.
What Money Gets You
People want a lot of money because it will give them security. You can have an alarm system on your house to keep Miss Scarlet from breaking in and hitting you on the head with a candlestick in the library.
People want a lot of money because it will give them prestige and power. You can join a Country Club and get your photo in the Society Page of the local paper.
People want a lot of money because they can then purchase fancy things that stimulate their senses. You can buy his and her fragrance producing drones to hover over your side of the bed at night.
When Money Gets You
And that is what Jesus, among other sages past and present, have warned against. It’s not money that is the problem, it’s the constant desire for more of it that is. And the supposed cure, having enough money, is actually the thing causing the disease since it turns out riches enlarge, rather than satisfy appetites.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | Sep 2, 2014 | Well Wealth - 2011 |
I thought I was done, but I was not. Here’s #6 in the Wealth series
Time Immemorial
Long, long ago wise men and women in many different parts of the world discovered that obsessing with wealth often backfires. The person spends his or her days accumulating, all the while not realizing their death is right around the corner. Even the mightiest and wealthiest can be felled at any moment. Alexander the Great died after an illness of just a few weeks. He was 32 years old and had just recently finished conquering the known world up to that point. All that wealth and power didn’t help him against a microbe they now think was the Bird Flu, carried by ravens who were documented as having been acting strangely and dying all around his home in the days and weeks leading up to his death.
Money, Money, Money
So what does that mean? Aren’t we suppose to gather money? Isn’t it important for our well being, our retirement, our health? I never get the message that we aren’t suppose to have money and prepare. The message I have always received, from Christianity, other religions and secular sources of wisdom, is to be a good steward, always recognizing money, goods, health, jobs, everything, can be taken away in a heartbeat.
This does not make me depressed as it might. It makes me feel at peace because I know I can deal with whatever comes. It might not be easy, or comfortable or understandable. But I can get through it because I don’t place my being in the hands of money, I place it in the hands of the universe.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Script is from the quote, “It was told to a sage that a certain person had acquired great wealth. He said, “Has he also acquired the days in which to spend it?”
Author is Solomon Ben Judah Ibn Gabirol, 1021-1069, Spanish poet
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 29, 2014 | Muhammed Ibn Zafar Al-Siqilli, Well Wealth - 2011 |
Drowning
I was raised in a very wealthy community, Darien, Connecticut, during my Jr. High and High School years. There was a LOT of money around. One thing I noticed as I was growing up was having that money gave no immunity to family problems. Yesterday I mentioned that having great wealth can exacerbate problems and having been in that world for a while is how I know it’s true.
After those teenage years my family’s financial situation balanced out to a much more average middle class existence. I went off to college and was pretty much on my own. All the usual things a college age kid goes through, crappy apartments, ramen noodles, part time or full time jobs doing dishes or bussing tables, I did them. On top of that I got my degrees in Art, simply the BIGGEST money making degree one can get, right? uh huh.
Lowered Expectations, Higher Satisfactions
The result was getting married and raising a family with no where near the money my parents had. Luckily I didn’t obsess about wealth or having a lot of money. But I did have to learn that with my limited income and a growing family I had to be much more frugal with our resources than I initially thought. I learned a number of great lessons from having to make that adjustment.
- Doing things your self instead of hiring someone else to do it is satisfying.
- Giving away a portion of what you make (even when it’s not a lot) to causes and people you believe in and who need help is satisfying.
- Living life simply without garish and ostentatious displays of wealth and ego is satisfying.
- Knowing my family and I can make do no matter what is satisfying.
The Lake of Satisfaction
The truth is you don’t drown in money when you have a lot of it. You drown in alcohol or boredom or stress or greed or ego or promiscuity or any number of other things. And how that happens usually revolves around a desperation to keep ahold of ALL the money. That leads to an intense level of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
If you can open the gates of the dam and let go of that money that is overflowing (and more is overflowing than you probably realize) you will be better able to enjoy the lake of Satisfaction instead of drowning in it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Muhammed Ibn Zafar Al – Siqilli, 1104 – 1172, Italian Political Theorist
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“Wealth is like water. They who do not open a dam to carry off its overflow drown in it.”
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 28, 2014 | Logan Pearsall Smith, Well Wealth - 2011 |
You will have to live with the fact that today is day $4 of our Wealth Series!
Are The Rich Different?
I don’t think they are. I think they just have more ways to get in trouble than the average Joe or Josephine. Where I might be able to splurge on a new TV I really shouldn’t buy. A wealthy person can splurge on a new mansion full of TVs or if REALLY wealthy, a whole TV station.
Dead Broke
In an interview recently, Hillary Clinton said that when they left the White House they were dead broke. The reason it turned into a gaffe was that the ‘Clinton’s ‘dead broke’ and the average American’s ‘dead broke’ is vastly different. They were still able to buy a huge house in a very tony area of the New York suburbs. They both had the ability to lecture for $200,000.00 dollars a pop. They both had the ability get paid to sit on corporate boards or start foundations that would pay them. They may have had a cash flow issue, even the biggest and brightest companies and individuals can have that happen, but they were not dead broke.
Balance
And that’s what is meant in this quote. It would be wretched to be wealthy but still have a middle class approach to using money but have to live among those who indulge in an ostentatious and garish use of money. Of course all wealthy people aren’t that way. Warren Buffett is one of the wealthiest men in the world and he still lives in the modest house he was born and raised in in Omaha, Nebraska. That is one of the main reasons he is about as popular of a wealthy person as you will ever find.
OK, I’ll Take the Chance
The last few ‘wealth’ posts I did last week got responses where the contributor said something like, “Yes, it could be a problem being wealthy, but I think I would take the chance.” Me too. I would be willing to try being super wealthy, running the wretched risk. But I would always want to remember that whatever I am not, good and bad, will only be increased with great wealth.
It’s a good reason to practice the good and put away the bad as often as possible….just in case the wealth comes in!
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Logan Pearsall Smith, 1865 – 1946, American-born British essayist and critic.
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“The wretchedness of being rich is that you have to live among rich people”
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 20, 2014 | Proverbs, Well Wealth - 2011 |
Not to be hasty, but we are on #3 of Wealth Week!
Metaphor
The drawing above is a metaphor for how some people will hurt and manipulate others in their pursuit of wealth. They are consumed with it and nothing will stop them. They will metaphorically murder someone who gets in their way.
No Metaphor
And at other times it is not a metaphor at all. People really do murder to get their hands on wealth. History is full of stories of that sort of lust that blinds the person to moral or ethical boundaries. Movies and books are filled with fictional and true exploits of those who pursue money at any expense.
Drive
What is it that drive a person to that point? Why does the husband or wife kill their spouse for the insurance money? Why does the dictator send his country’s young men to death in war to get to gold or oil or land? How do you control your desire for wealth? What keep you from becoming that person?
I wish I knew why it happens and how to stop it because it certainly is one of the most pernicious and destructive impulses humans have and we would be so much better off with that under some sort of control and balance on the planet.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is from the Old Testament, Proverbs 28:20
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 19, 2014 | Marty Coleman, Well Wealth - 2011 |
I hope you survive day #2 of Wealth Week!
The Good Old Poor Days
One of the things you can be most confident of when listening to an older couple talk about their lives together is that there will eventually be a moment in the story telling when one of them says, “We had nothing and were broke almost all the time, but we had love and fun in our household.” It’s not a universal, and there are people who will also say those days were terrible. But many will look back fondly on having overcome the adversity of little money, a crappy apartment, a lousy first job, or any number of other things that can befall us.
When my first wife and I started our family we lived in a pretty crappy 90 year old rental home in downtown San Jose, California. There was 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, a pretty ugly backyard. We had mostly hand-me-down furniture and inexpensive or handmade clothing and other items around the house. The 3 girls all lived in the same room. I worked 3 jobs, my wife worked one on and off, and we barely made ends meet. But still it worked out pretty well, the kids were happy and we enjoyed our lives.
The Bad New Rich Days
We moved to Oklahoma in 1994 when I got a new job. The cost of living was SO LOW that we were able to buy a big 4 bedroom house for the same price we were paying rent. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but we certainly were prospering compared to back in San Jose. And with that came not more satisfaction, but more dissatisfaction. My wife reached her relationship breaking point with me within a few years of being in Tulsa and the marriage broke apart as a result.
There were other elements to the break up besides money, but my wife especially was more than a little uncomfortable with a bigger house in the suburbs and all that went with it. As a matter of fact, when we separated she bought a very small house much more like the one we had in San Jose than the bigger suburban house were were living in. This was partly due to finances of course, but it was also the type of house she had mentioned she wanted many times as we drove around the Tulsa area in the years before our split.
Question:
Why is it that many of us have such a hard time with prosperity? What is it that happens to make us more dissatisfied when logically everything should be pointing us to a greater level of satisfaction?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is mine and is an interpretation of a longer quote by Alan Gregg
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“Humans are great at surviving adversity, not so great at surviving prosperity”
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 18, 2014 | Lew Wallace, Well Wealth - 2011 |
It’s the start of a new Wealth Week (I did one in 2011 that these will be added to) and I have a question. We alway think wealth is filled with positives, but it can also be a test. Have you had great abundance of some sort come upon you quickly or unexpectedly? Maybe it was money, or maybe it was property or some other material thing or a relationship that gave you much more than you ever could have hoped for.
What was your response? Was it a trial? What did you learn from it?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Lew Wallace, 1827, 1905, American statesman and author of ‘Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ’
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“A human is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good fortune”
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by Marty Coleman | May 13, 2011 | Well Wealth - 2011 |
When I was growing up I, like most kids, didn’t really know if I was rich or poor, wealthy or not. I just knew my life. But as I grew a bit older I found friends who lived in smaller houses and apartments. I found friends who lived in big mansions too. I found friends who scraped by, friends who went to private school and summered on exclusive islands.
But I didn’t really know where I stood until the day we went to our housekeeper Libby’s home (that tells you something right there. I didn’t even know having a housekeeper put you in a certain economic class). All I knew was she had worked for us in Maryland when I was a baby and now was working for us in California after my mother had my younger sister.
I loved her because she told me some day I would be able to beat up my older sister and that if I ate too many oreos I would turn into one. I could think of worse fates. I also liked that she lived in my room with me for a few weeks when my sister was first born. I had a huge downstairs game room with a bunk bed. She slept on the bottom bunk, I on the top. It was great fun.
I had never been so dumbfounded as the moment we drove up to her house. In my eyes it was a completely run down house just this side of being a shack. I really truly felt like she shouldn’t live there, that it was probably really dangerous and it wasn’t right. I thought we should have her continue to live with us. It was a shock to my 10 year old system.
That’s when I first realized not everyone lived like we did. It was the beginning of me understanding money and being rich or poor. But it took me quite a bit longer to even start to learn what it means to be truly wealthy. I am still learning that one, again and again.
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