My wife and I had a discussion while driving around looking
at early Christmas lights yesterday. I
think it’s the same discussion we have every year. We generally start in one of the more
expensive neighborhoods, and then wander into other areas we know have
lights. The houses in the neighborhood
start at about $500,000 and go up from there.
You can get a lot of house for $500,000 in my area.
The discussion centered on the question “should I be ashamed
to want a $500,000 house?” The answer
should be an emphatic no. As long as you
haven’t cheated anyone to get the money, you can buy whatever you want. But the thought still persists. I think it’s because of several underlying
problems.
First, people preach the wrong form of Christianity. They preach a form where Christians should
never have any fun, enjoy life, and should be just barely surviving because
they give everything they have away.
It’s hard to discuss how off and wrong this is, but it’s something that
perseveres. If you listen to the Bible,
and really believe it, then you should really dig into the effects of sin
versus a sinless life. Jesus led a
sinless life, so would have all the benefits of a sinless life. The Old Testament has a lot of those. Basic end result is this: Jesus wasn’t
broke. He was rich. If Jesus really lived a sinless life, and you
really believe the Bible is true, then Jesus was rich.
The thought that Jesus was rich changes a lot of the dynamic
of Christianity. I could go farther on
that one, but Larry Hutton does a better job at that discussion.
The 2nd part of the discussion is what was taught
in public schools. Tying into that is
how the media presents wealth. I’ll
start with public schools. I was a child
of the 1980s. Even when things were
booming at their best, there was no love lost of capitalism. I would say it was boarder line
socialism. But the problem was it is a
bunch of socialists trying to teach kids how to thrive in a capitalist
society. It just doesn’t work. Schools never teach about honest businessmen
and women sacrificing hours of their day to grow a business. It’s always about the giant, evil corporation
that is out to destroy the world. The
discussion of finance and money is always bad.
It’s always about how evil and greedy the rich are.
On the path to becoming rich, I think rich people are quite
possibly the most misunderstood group of humans in the world. Quite possibly because they all think in a
very distinct way. And that distinct way
is generally the same. It narrows to down
to live below your means, work hard, and then work some more, and sacrifice
what doesn’t matter to get what does.
But that is a message that is universally ignored, and never
taught. There was a marshmallow study
of small children. The child was given a
marshmallow, and told if the marshmallow was still in the room when the person
came back in 5 minutes, the child would get two marshmallows. Those children that successfully waited 5
minutes and received their 2nd marshmallow were statistically
significantly better off than everyone else that took the marshmallow.
So why do we always teach children to take the marshmallow?
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