live as rich folk do
Money's true nature it to make more money. It's a magical snowball that gathers more and more snow as it rolls down the hillside. The more snow it gathers, the more surface area it has to gather up even more snow. The larger the snowball gets, the more it weighs and the faster it goes down the hill. The faster it goes down hill, the larger it gets until it's just uncontrollable.
When you're poor. Your snowball is just a stagnated snow flake, stuck to the flat ground with the other snow flakes. When you're poor, your little flake of snow doesn't gather any speed, nor does it grow in size. It just sits there and starts to melt. It's so small that it goes unnoticed among all the other snow flakes....
My boss has millions of dollars that will soon be a billion dollars. You would never know it, if you looked at him because he wears a modest, well-worn cowboy hat that is stained with both sweat and dirt from years of use. He drives a modest 1983 Ford F250 pick-up truck that doesn't start all the time, has no stereo and the seats are all torn up. He lives in a four room shack in the middle of a huge hay field that has no television, no radio and is in such a state of disrepair that leveling it to the ground would be a huge improvement. He uses a velcro wallet that he was given in 1985. The velcro has worn off and he has to use a rubber band to keep it closed. If you saw my boss in person, you would think he was just a modest, slow moving, soft talking, old country farmer. He still has a hanky that he carries in his back pocket to use for blowing his nose.
Sounds like a cheapskate, huh? You could be right, but I think it's something else. In two more years, that hanky will be wiping snot out of a billionaire's nose. That wallet will still be the doorway to his fortune, and he will still be out there on that tractor, mowing hay. He didn't want a fortune...
He was raised on a small farm in Montana and came to the Seattle area in the 1950's to make his own life. He just wanted to make enough money to buy his own farm and live there with his family. After ten years of working as a mechanic and a farm hand, he was able to buy a small parcel of land fifteen miles outside of Seattle. Each year, he kept buying more and more land until he had 6000 acres by the end of 1970. By this time, he had a wife, four kids and was pretty happy with the way things turned out. He loved his wife, his kids, his farm and he loved to ride his tractor and work the land.
Over the next twenty years, the land he owned went up in value from three dollars an acre to over a million and a quarter dollars per acre. He was rich and didn't have to work another day in his life. He didn't ask for the millions, but he had them. He just wanted to work the land, but no one wanted to let him. The only thing he was able to do was to work the acreage in front of his tiny house.
His wife wanted to spend money and she wanted to live the life that their new money would allow. He didn't. His kids wanted to spend money, drive nice cars and do as rich kids do. He didn't. They all reached a compromise; His wife left and took the kids and half the money. They went off and became rich people, he stayed behind and worked his small parcel of land.
With his wife and kids gone, my boss put on his hat, gased up his tractor and went to work. The wife split up the money between the kids and they went off and wasted it. So did she. Eventually two of the kids had to come back to work in the family business. In the accounting department, of course. The other two kids parlayed their share into larger shares of wealth and are ridiculously rich, with their own land and their own rich kids. My boss just rides a tractor and tries his best not to think about it.
I have known a lot of rich people in my life and I have seen both extremes in what it can do to people. I have heard both the pleasure and the displeasure in being a rich person and I have felt the sting of their corruption and the humility of their generosity (of course, usually their generosity has a hidden price tag, but hey, it's money, so what do I care.). In all of my dealings with the rich, I have never felt that their claims of "money brings nothing but misery" and "you don't know the pressure of being rich..." have ever had any merit, until now.
First, I need to say that I think that money's true value is not what you can buy with it, but "when" you can buy it. Money is time. Money allows you the opportunity to do things when you want to do them without having to plan, save, starve, endure, be patient, work hard, discipline yourself, or know better. Money allows your flights of fancy to find a suitable runway from which to take flight. If you want to go to Hawaii and you're rich, you can go at that exact moment. If you're poor, you'll have to wait until you have the money and the time to do so. So if you're rich, there is no reason for you to suffer about anything, right?
My boss just had a birthday. He's 87. He has a working, reliable tractor that he loves. If it breaks he fixes it himself. He has a working, reliable old Stetson that keeps the rain and sun off his face. He has a working, reliable old dog that is with him every moment of the day. He has 40 acres just outside his old farm house that he can mow whenever he wants to and he has a billion dollars to mow it anyway he wants to. He didn't ask for anything from anyone. When you're rich, you don't ever ask for anything. He did mention that he needed a new coat because his old wool-lined Levi jacket was eaten by the goat.
His family held a party on his precious 40 acres without asking him if they could do so. They set up a tent, dug a hole for pit BBQ, set up a dance floor, hired a band and set up a dining hall. Every person that he is barely remotely related to showed up. He wasn't even aware that he had second second cousins. Even his granddaughter's husband's brother showed up at the party... as a family member! He had a lot of family that just looooooved him Not one bad word was spoken about him and you would have thought that he was the reason they were alive. Also in attendance were a lot of his friends - other rich people. His entire staff of nine farm hands, myself included, where there too. It was quite the gathering. There was a lot of food, booze and mingling. Well, when I say mingling, I mean that a lot of people were trying to make their way over to my boss and get in a good word with him. They all talked to him like he was retarded. They used loud voices and spoke slowly which must have been really strange to a man that hears just fine.
The gifts he received were outrageous. He was given; a new truck with leather seats, gold golf clubs, golf shirts, golf shoes, a new Stetson, two tickets for a cruise to Puerto Rico, and framed photos of... his loving family. In the midst of all this celebratory madness, his farm hands handed him one gift that they had all pitched in for - a new wool lined Levi jacket. We then ate our share of the BBQ and went back to work.
My boss only smiled when he got that jacket and when the goat ate the tickets for the cruise. You could see that he was upset over everyone trampling down on 10 acres of his precious farm land and you could tell that he knew that he was surrounded by a bunch of people that are plotting against him. They either wanted him to die soon, so they can have his money for themselves, or they wanedt to figure out a way to get the money away from him right now... some how. He knows this fact, and he tries his best to just be a thankful old farmer. You can tell that he is torn inside. On one hand, he's thankful that he isn't one of those old men living in a nursing home that never hears from any of his relatives on his birthday, but on the other hand, he would rather be the old man in a nursing home that knew what his friends and family really felt about him.
Rich people have a burden from which there is no relief. They don't know who is a genuine friend and who is just a friend of the money. That has to be the worst feeling in the world, especially when you're not sure if your family is genuine or just a family of the money.
A rich person has the luxury of time but not the luxury of real friends. Rich people are trapped in a snowball that is rolling down a hill, out of control. It gathers dead weight which it does not need and it has no way to shake it off.
The next day, after all the guests had gone, my boss was back out on his tractor, picking up after his own party. The guests had trampled down ten acres of hay but he was back out there trying to make it work... in his new wool lined Levi Jacket and his old faithful Stetson hat. His dog was next to him as usual. His snot rag was still in his back pocket. The keys to the old truck were still in his pocket.
The new gifts from the night before were gathered on the porch. The goat was chewing on them. It's okay, my boss doesn't play golf and hasn't left the state of Washington since he moved here in the 1950's.
When you're poor. Your snowball is just a stagnated snow flake, stuck to the flat ground with the other snow flakes. When you're poor, your little flake of snow doesn't gather any speed, nor does it grow in size. It just sits there and starts to melt. It's so small that it goes unnoticed among all the other snow flakes....
My boss has millions of dollars that will soon be a billion dollars. You would never know it, if you looked at him because he wears a modest, well-worn cowboy hat that is stained with both sweat and dirt from years of use. He drives a modest 1983 Ford F250 pick-up truck that doesn't start all the time, has no stereo and the seats are all torn up. He lives in a four room shack in the middle of a huge hay field that has no television, no radio and is in such a state of disrepair that leveling it to the ground would be a huge improvement. He uses a velcro wallet that he was given in 1985. The velcro has worn off and he has to use a rubber band to keep it closed. If you saw my boss in person, you would think he was just a modest, slow moving, soft talking, old country farmer. He still has a hanky that he carries in his back pocket to use for blowing his nose.
Sounds like a cheapskate, huh? You could be right, but I think it's something else. In two more years, that hanky will be wiping snot out of a billionaire's nose. That wallet will still be the doorway to his fortune, and he will still be out there on that tractor, mowing hay. He didn't want a fortune...
He was raised on a small farm in Montana and came to the Seattle area in the 1950's to make his own life. He just wanted to make enough money to buy his own farm and live there with his family. After ten years of working as a mechanic and a farm hand, he was able to buy a small parcel of land fifteen miles outside of Seattle. Each year, he kept buying more and more land until he had 6000 acres by the end of 1970. By this time, he had a wife, four kids and was pretty happy with the way things turned out. He loved his wife, his kids, his farm and he loved to ride his tractor and work the land.
Over the next twenty years, the land he owned went up in value from three dollars an acre to over a million and a quarter dollars per acre. He was rich and didn't have to work another day in his life. He didn't ask for the millions, but he had them. He just wanted to work the land, but no one wanted to let him. The only thing he was able to do was to work the acreage in front of his tiny house.
His wife wanted to spend money and she wanted to live the life that their new money would allow. He didn't. His kids wanted to spend money, drive nice cars and do as rich kids do. He didn't. They all reached a compromise; His wife left and took the kids and half the money. They went off and became rich people, he stayed behind and worked his small parcel of land.
With his wife and kids gone, my boss put on his hat, gased up his tractor and went to work. The wife split up the money between the kids and they went off and wasted it. So did she. Eventually two of the kids had to come back to work in the family business. In the accounting department, of course. The other two kids parlayed their share into larger shares of wealth and are ridiculously rich, with their own land and their own rich kids. My boss just rides a tractor and tries his best not to think about it.
I have known a lot of rich people in my life and I have seen both extremes in what it can do to people. I have heard both the pleasure and the displeasure in being a rich person and I have felt the sting of their corruption and the humility of their generosity (of course, usually their generosity has a hidden price tag, but hey, it's money, so what do I care.). In all of my dealings with the rich, I have never felt that their claims of "money brings nothing but misery" and "you don't know the pressure of being rich..." have ever had any merit, until now.
First, I need to say that I think that money's true value is not what you can buy with it, but "when" you can buy it. Money is time. Money allows you the opportunity to do things when you want to do them without having to plan, save, starve, endure, be patient, work hard, discipline yourself, or know better. Money allows your flights of fancy to find a suitable runway from which to take flight. If you want to go to Hawaii and you're rich, you can go at that exact moment. If you're poor, you'll have to wait until you have the money and the time to do so. So if you're rich, there is no reason for you to suffer about anything, right?
My boss just had a birthday. He's 87. He has a working, reliable tractor that he loves. If it breaks he fixes it himself. He has a working, reliable old Stetson that keeps the rain and sun off his face. He has a working, reliable old dog that is with him every moment of the day. He has 40 acres just outside his old farm house that he can mow whenever he wants to and he has a billion dollars to mow it anyway he wants to. He didn't ask for anything from anyone. When you're rich, you don't ever ask for anything. He did mention that he needed a new coat because his old wool-lined Levi jacket was eaten by the goat.
His family held a party on his precious 40 acres without asking him if they could do so. They set up a tent, dug a hole for pit BBQ, set up a dance floor, hired a band and set up a dining hall. Every person that he is barely remotely related to showed up. He wasn't even aware that he had second second cousins. Even his granddaughter's husband's brother showed up at the party... as a family member! He had a lot of family that just looooooved him Not one bad word was spoken about him and you would have thought that he was the reason they were alive. Also in attendance were a lot of his friends - other rich people. His entire staff of nine farm hands, myself included, where there too. It was quite the gathering. There was a lot of food, booze and mingling. Well, when I say mingling, I mean that a lot of people were trying to make their way over to my boss and get in a good word with him. They all talked to him like he was retarded. They used loud voices and spoke slowly which must have been really strange to a man that hears just fine.
The gifts he received were outrageous. He was given; a new truck with leather seats, gold golf clubs, golf shirts, golf shoes, a new Stetson, two tickets for a cruise to Puerto Rico, and framed photos of... his loving family. In the midst of all this celebratory madness, his farm hands handed him one gift that they had all pitched in for - a new wool lined Levi jacket. We then ate our share of the BBQ and went back to work.
My boss only smiled when he got that jacket and when the goat ate the tickets for the cruise. You could see that he was upset over everyone trampling down on 10 acres of his precious farm land and you could tell that he knew that he was surrounded by a bunch of people that are plotting against him. They either wanted him to die soon, so they can have his money for themselves, or they wanedt to figure out a way to get the money away from him right now... some how. He knows this fact, and he tries his best to just be a thankful old farmer. You can tell that he is torn inside. On one hand, he's thankful that he isn't one of those old men living in a nursing home that never hears from any of his relatives on his birthday, but on the other hand, he would rather be the old man in a nursing home that knew what his friends and family really felt about him.
Rich people have a burden from which there is no relief. They don't know who is a genuine friend and who is just a friend of the money. That has to be the worst feeling in the world, especially when you're not sure if your family is genuine or just a family of the money.
A rich person has the luxury of time but not the luxury of real friends. Rich people are trapped in a snowball that is rolling down a hill, out of control. It gathers dead weight which it does not need and it has no way to shake it off.
The next day, after all the guests had gone, my boss was back out on his tractor, picking up after his own party. The guests had trampled down ten acres of hay but he was back out there trying to make it work... in his new wool lined Levi Jacket and his old faithful Stetson hat. His dog was next to him as usual. His snot rag was still in his back pocket. The keys to the old truck were still in his pocket.
The new gifts from the night before were gathered on the porch. The goat was chewing on them. It's okay, my boss doesn't play golf and hasn't left the state of Washington since he moved here in the 1950's.
posted by Daniel Loomis | 2:09 PM
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