Financial freedom is the one essential ingredient for what? Anyone? I’m going to go with, a happy life. Alternatively, you could go with Oscar Wilde’s thoughts:
“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
Mammon worship is not something all that detestable. But to give a go by to values for the sake of material prosperity is loathsome.
Wealth is not a source of pleasure and wellbeing. But sufficient money keeps at bay several factors that estrange us from happiness.
What is the Essential Ingredient? Wealth?
People at your command, friends, kith and kin, a fleet of vehicles, liquid funds on hand, good offsprings are all deemed as part of being wealthy. But all these should keep a person in a state of happiness, otherwise, even liberal doses of all the elements stated above have no relevance to the man who owns them. All materialistic wealth is accompanied by the burden of safeguarding it and the fear of losing.
We have to agree, money is essential to the quality of life, though it sounds to concepts of piety. Life gains certain amounts of freedom on account of financial well-being.
Excruciating, truly, is a life lived in everlasting want and financial struggle.
Warren Buffet, the celebrated investment expert reportedly said that being born in penury is one thing and remaining in poverty all along is utter incompetence. The remark made by Buffet describes the entire gulf between living a meaningful and goal-ridden life versus leading an aimless existence.
Poverty has a telling effect on physical and psychological health. Interpersonal human relations get strained for reasons of money. Let us not forget that “avarice is the root of all evil.”
Nevertheless, cultures all across the world have attached a certain impiety to being rich. Oft heard negative comments over money and its relevance:
I) Where will this craving for earning money stop?
ii) Is every rich man truly happy?
iii) Wealth accumulates if only one is corrupt, dishonest and fraudulent.
iv) It is immoral to run after money
v) Money leads to spiritual bankruptcy
A pondering need be done whether all these aphorisms have substance in them or they have simply emanated from unrequited seekers of wealth.
It is also noteworthy that just through prolonged repetition; these ideas have gained an aura of plausibility.
Definitely, all the negativity over money needs a re-thinking. Nothing wrong in getting fixed to ideas like:
I) Succeed in becoming affluent
II) Create a surplus of my income over my expenditure
III) I would give up my innate indifference to become wealthy.
But becoming rich involves the risk of risk-taking and risk-bearing. One has to be prepared. As the oft-quoted economic precept says, profit is the reward for the risk taken. Just as an aside and to gain an interesting perspective, you would do well to read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!”
Every passing moment must be utilized to enrich ourselves in knowledge and every unit of our earnings need be carefully preserved and invested in the right way. Essentially, seeds must be sown even when we are young so that we lead our old age fully in dignity and with an undying enthusiasm.
Everyone desirous of going ahead financially has to know one basic doctrine that simple unimaginative toil and drudgery is not the highway to reach heights.
The potion has to contain some individual smartness, some more intelligence and information, a bit of diligent observation and finally, that pinch of salt called perseverance.
It is to be always remembered, the moneyed man commands respect from the world. But it is never to be forgotten that stooping to undesired levels kills our own self-respect!
Qualitative inner self lends a glitter for all external paraphernalia of wealth possessions. Excellence inside has several facets. Sincerity in thought, deed and action, tolerance, anger under control, are only a few measures of the inner quality.
Passing years in life need not merely make us old; instead, they should add to growth in all spheres including financial well-being. As I said at the beginning, financial freedom is the one essential ingredient to having a happy life.
Sycamore McBride
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