At the beginning of every class, I hand out an information sheet to find out the type of people that are attending. And one of the questions is, what are my goals? What are my goals in life? And this is whether you’re 16 or 60 for that matter. What are your goals?
And inevitably, a number of people in the class will say, I wanna be rich. Okay. So I ask, and then what? And they look at me in a flabbergasted state. And then what?
What do you mean? I’ll be rich. Wow. Wonderful. Grand.
I love it. But then what? What are your plans? And obviously, people really have no plans. They have no idea what this statement means.
Because being rich is associated with freedom, of course. Personal freedom, societal freedom, psychological freedom, financial freedom. But of course, then if you ask even more probing questions. Okay, grand. How are you going to be rich?
Well, I’m going to get a good degree. Okay? And then what? Well, then I’m going to get a good job. Great.
But a good job won’t make you rich. I mean, if you go back 50 years, most people quit school where I was growing up in grade 10 or 11, and they could make 2 to 4000 US dollars a month. You could buy a house in a year and a half, 2 years. Small house, but you could buy a house. You could buy a car in a relatively short period of time, 6 months, 8 months.
Money was huge, but nobody had an education. But then of course, what happened? The resource based economy of North America died. Hence, we had no employment in these industries after a period of time, after about 20 years. There were no fish to speak of.
The trees, mostly the good ones, have been cut down, so the logging industry diminished in employment. Mining, farming also declined. So then these people, now totally uneducated and now probably 45, 50 years old, are bitter, and they get jobs in construction if they’re lucky or maybe some type of service jobs. Some got janitors working for schools, you know, into the civil service, public service, etcetera, etcetera. But it wasn’t a happy time for the majority of these people.
Then along, of course, comes mister Trump. Make America, hence North America, great again. It’s a very compelling argument. I can do it. I can return your past.
But, of course, who can return the past? But that’s up to your political decision. So you ask, you’re gonna get this job. Great. But you’re not gonna be rich.
Then what are you going to do? You’re going to be just a wage slave. And even if it’s a good job, let’s say you’re a professional like a doctor, lawyer, dentist. Pretty good living. You will own a house, but you won’t be rich like people that you can imagine.
Right? Elon Musk rich, for example, won’t be happening. So you gotta get real that time is not free. And to make money requires risk and of course, it requires time. And so time you can’t spend on your, perhaps, personal development or on your family, so people suffer.
I was reading the other day about a young man, 42 years old, had been an NHL player, obviously, lots of money, 3 kids, ex girlfriend was a famous tennis player, and he jumped out of a building. 42 years old. He killed himself. So, obviously, Rich had not been associated with rich relative to spirituality or one’s relationship to God. Not at all.
So we do have these three fundamental questions. Why am I here? Me. What’s my mission? What will I accomplish in this piece of life?
And finally, what happens when I leave here? Now if you wanna throw physical wealth on top of that, great. Money’s good. I love money. But let’s not be fooled.
The collection of material things has never been your ticket to happiness, sadly. It just isn’t. And I think once we learn this, we can be free to be the person that we want to become. Because why not be wealthy? Right?
Wealthy, which means I’m wealthy with spirituality. I’m wealthy with my finances. I’m wealthy with relationships. Then I can live a positive life. I can flourish, which is what everyone wants to do.
And you can try this experiment. Put a little seed in the ground. Give it a little water. Soon, you’ll have a tiny little stem coming up. Leaves will be resplendent.
Then, eventually, there’ll be a beautiful bouquet, flowers, etcetera, etcetera. And finally, it will wilt back into the ground, a flourishing life. But if you don’t give water to this seed, nothing grows. So you’ll have to give your life some aspect of spirituality. Why am I here?
What about me? How am I here for starters? These are really good questions to contemplate. So let us not just answer this question, I want to be rich. We have to think about what this means.
We really do. And then you know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary if I’m going to really discover high. I’m going to be financial wealthy, and critical thinking is truly great. It’ll help me in life. You take care. God bless. Bye bye.