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Feb. 22, 2007 If I only had a million dollars, I would be soooo set. Or at least I assume that to be true. But what if I had millions? How about billions? Or what if I had the ability to make infinite money through being resourceful? The question is, how much money is enough? Look around you and take stock of what you have, what you do and where you want to be. If you have everything you need and then some, then you are doing pretty well. If you have everything you want, then you could not possibly want for more, correct? So when you watch the news or read the paper, you see people, not you or I necessarily, that make more money, individually, in a year than you and I and everyone we know make in a lifetime. So one has to ask, are they a better person than me? The idea of being famous and rich are in most people's minds. Doubt me? Look at American Idol or Survivor or YouTube. It is all about becoming rich and famous or at least noticed so that someone might give you some money so that you can be rich and famous too. All that hard work that you and I do, day in and out, is to one end either keeping our lifestyle going or making up for all the debt we incurred trying to keep up with the Joneses. So we look at these million and billionaires and wish we were them, with all their toys and all of their lifestyles. We dream of buying expensive clothing, eating at expensive restaurants and being adored by the throngs. But do we aspire to that or do we just not know better? Look at the news and you will see two women, one living and one dead, that got to the point of making it in the realm of the public. One went from dancing on a pole in Texas to the estate of a billionaire to being dead at 39, the stuff of tabloid fodder. The other is a poor girl who rose to prominence by being groomed and created to take over the world of pop music only to become an absolute joke of a real person. These aren't new stories and they aren't special in the sense of world history but they are what young men and women want to be only to not understand at what price glory. Whether it is a CEO that makes a fortune off of the gullibility of investors who would rather dream of huge profits or the professional athlete who makes an eight-figure salary and sells their talent to the highest bidder, as long as their body holds up in their sport. Maybe the price is conscience or maybe it is future disability. Whatever the cost, it is based around making money. I don't necessarily blame them for wanting to make good in the bank account but the price and can be too high. When I think about what I have and where I am, I concern myself, these days, with being happy. I have love and health and security, for now. I don't have everything in the world. But, when you die, you don't have room in the ground for all of your accumulations and, frankly, unless you rose to the prominence of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or John F. Kennedy, then no one will care where you're buried or what you did. All the money in the world and all of the plaques on your wall are meaningless. It is your memory, not your money, that made you a good person. So think about that the next time you want to be millionaire so you can have the big house and all the toys and women or men and you think being a star or famous will solve your problems. It is the measure of being a good person that will matter most and you don't need any money to do that. Peace. ------------ About the author: Nicholas Olson is an aspiring playwright and former journalist. He spent parts of his high school, college and professional life as a journalist, serving as a military journalist from 2000-06. Mr. Olson is an avid writer and enjoys political opinion. His views are not that of any particular party or of the country he once served: They are his own. Email: nicholasjolson@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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