I’ve met Ebenezer Scrooge on many occasions during my business career. Those people who will hold every penny captive often driven by greed are invariably unhappy. The pursuit of the pound , every pound will in the end cause misery. On one occasion in a 11 hour meeting with lawyers whilst buying a business for a wealthy man he asked to go for a walk and coffee break.We left the lawyers offices and entered a coffee shop on Cheapside ( aptly named ). The guy walked in with three of us bought his own coffee sat down and then asked if we were going to have a coffee too. We returned to the meeting and he completed his £80m acquisition.
Dissatisfaction comes when people compare their wealth with others and never enough will rot the bones. It was only the ghost of Ebenezer , his old partner Marley that brought warning. There are 177 billionaires in the UK today , perhaps not all are miserable but the majority of the ones I met were. They often had foregone the simple and they refused to to accept my input that shrouds don’t have pockets. You can’t take the wealth with you. One I knew reused his tea bag and refused to buy a new car because of rapid value depreciation. You can of course exercise thrift and be careful but it is not going to be a joy to behold.
Those that accumulate great wealth have been known to give away their wealth to Charity but these are often Charitable Foundations which they still control as to let go would be sacrilege. Scrooge prioritized his money making and missed marriage and then family as a result. Only till he realized that sharing brings joy came that eureka moment for Ebenezer.
Masayoshi Son a tech investor experienced the biggest personal financial loss in one year of $58 billion dollars. That left him with $19 billion dollars and he’s still managing to get by. FTX the digital currency platform run by a 30 year old man lost $51 billion. With inflation globally running at 15% on average wealth can be wiped away and not even Scrooge can beat the fiscal phenomenon. The reality is that people need to realise that we are all stewards , custodians of what we have , passing through on our journey back to zero. Nothing can easily be counted and hoarding here on earth is a recognized mental illness. We receive when we give. Try it. Let go of the Scrooge in you and take the self out of selfish going forward.
qbitblogger 