So, only a few days to go until Christmas! All the presents are under the tree, that my wife, Annie, has so lovingly decorated. The turkey is ready to be roasted. All the shopping done. Everything is ready and the house is filled with warmth, anticipation and the cries of delight and joy.
And I think – not for the first time – I am so lucky. A wonderful wife, two loving sons, wonderful family and friends. Above all, in good health, full of hope, greeting each day with smile and cries of : Thank you God, I am alive.
I couldn't ask for more than I have got. Peace, plenty, health, happiness and enough money to ensure that I can survive, and that I am not dependent on the market forces, stock market, shares and options and bonuses!I am also happy that I live in England. Yes, like anywhere else England too has its problems and things can improve, but here people still value community, sense of belonging, being for each other, cooperation and collaboration, security, Gun-free culture, the National Health Service, the BBC and the Guardian, for example.
It makes me sit and wonder: do our politicians, our policy makers, bankers and other millionaires, billionaires, celebrities, warmongers, and tax-avoiders, to name but a few, ever feel this way too? Do they ever have moments when the weight of their astonishing luck makes them buckle at the knees and fall to the ground in gratitude? Do they ever think with compassion, sympathy and empathy about all those who are poorer, less successful, less achieved than their good selves? I do not know. I suppose not.
I wish to give these and others like them the best Christmas present: Be Grateful. Give thanks for all you have. Things could be worse. Merry Christmas!
On the relationship between money, rat race, success and happiness
Enough money is surely good, But too much of it, that’s another story
“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.” JOHN STUART MILL
The following is a revealing expansion of the above:
In 1923, a very important meeting was held at Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending this meeting were nine of the world’s most ‘successful’ financiers and businessmen. Those present were: the President of the largest independent steel company; the President of the largest utility company; the President of the largest gas company; the greatest wheat speculator; the President of the New York Stock Exchange; a member of the President’s cabinet; the greatest ‘bear’ in Wall Street; the head of the world’s greatest monopoly; and the President of the Bank of International Settlement.
This, we must admit, was a gathering of some of the world’s most successful men – or at least men who had found the secret of making money. Twenty-five years later (1948) let us see what had happened to these men: the President of the largest independent steel company had died, bankrupt, having lived on borrowed money for five years before his death; the President of the largest utility company had died a fugitive from justice, penniless in a foreign land; the President of the largest gas company was insane; the greatest wheat speculator had died abroad – insolvent; the President of the New York Stock Exchange had recently been released from Sing Sing penitentiary; the member of the President’s cabinet had been pardoned from prison so that he could die at home; the greatest ‘bear’ in Wall Street had died – a suicide; the head of the world’s greatest monopoly had died – a suicide; the President of the Bank of International Settlement had died – a suicide.
All these men learned well the art of making money but none of them learned how to live, commented the original compiler of this list.
Given the above, what advise one may give to the young people today, entering the world of business and commerce:
Be a Good Wealth Creator. How? By knowing the answers to the following three questions:
1- What are you making this money for?
2- How are you making this money?
3- And How will you spend this money?
Yours in Gratitude,
Kamran