RuthAnnHarnisch.com

Hi Ruth Ann,

If I won the lottery I’d indulge in a few goodies for my pleasure and amusement then I would spend my time and energy sharing my technique Me Mapping with the world. I used to wonder what my purpose in life or unique gift to offer was but now that I’ve created something of value to share with the world I’ve found it costs a great deal to live it and freely share at the exact same time.

The good news is that it’s possible and I’m on my way and along my journey I’ve learned to truly treasure my life. The frustrating news is that now that I’ve found my life’s passion I feel an urgency to do it immediately and money hasn’t begun to flow just yet.

Thanks for asking the question though because it made me realize I’ve already won my own little lottery in life. BTW: Enjoy your wealth, you appear to be making good use of it

Warm wishes,
Joy

I don’t hate the rich. I figure it’s all in one great big pot and some have a bigger spoon than others.
And I would really really LOVE the rich if they’d help this unemployed older woman with her mortgage.

peace……

A great read!

Hi Ruth Ann,

I for one do not hate the rich. I am not sure why people do. It almost seems ridiculous to me. Just imagine what kind of a world this would be if we celebrated hard working people. smart people and the people who take a chance! Success always leaves a clue so I am open to the clues I find. Therefore I applaud the success of other’s.
Ruth Ann, you are rich indeed and I know only too well that it is because what you give out comes back. Many years ago you helped me raise awareness in Literacy in our Schools in a small town in Nova Scotia. To this day it is still happening in the school and Oprah’s Chairs are still talked about.
I have enjoyed reading your blog and I am glad I was able to connect with you again.
Thanks for being you! I’ll take the straight shooter you!
Have a great day!

Liz

I think it depends on how you became rich whether I ‘hate’ (or more likely resent) you or not. It’s all about context and history and what you do with your prosperity (especially if it is ‘undeserved’) and not from your own hard work.

Frank Rich gets it: and it is summarized by this “In 2009, too many who worked hard and played by the rules are still suffering, while too many who bent or broke the rules with little or no accountability are back reaping a disproportionate share of what scant prosperity there is. ”

Here is a bit more from his column today:

Another look at this much-chronicled past, “Dillinger’s Wild Ride,” by Elliott J. Gorn, a professor of history at Brown University, is the first to be published during our own hard times. In it you learn that ordinary law-abiding Americans even wrote letters to newspapers and politicians defending Dillinger’s assault on banks. “Dillinger did not rob poor people,” wrote one correspondent to The Indianapolis Star. “He robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.”

Gorn writes that the current economic crisis helped him understand better why Americans could root for a homicidal bank robber: “As our own day’s story of stupid policies and lax regulations, of greedy moneymen, free-market hucksters, white-collar thieves, and self-serving politicians unfolds, and as banks foreclose on millions of families’ homes, workers lose their jobs, and life savings disappear, it becomes clear why Dillinger’s wild ride so fascinated America during the 1930s.” An outlaw could channel a people’s “sense of rage at the system that had failed them.”

As Gorn reminds us, Americans who felt betrayed didn’t just take to cheering Dillinger; some turned to the populism of Huey Long, or to right-wing and anti-Semitic demagogues like Father Coughlin, or to the Communist Party. The passions unleashed by economic inequities are explosive because those inequities violate the fundamental capitalist faith. It’s the bedrock American dream that virtues like hard work and playing by the rules are rewarded with prosperity.

In 2009, too many who worked hard and played by the rules are still suffering, while too many who bent or broke the rules with little or no accountability are back reaping a disproportionate share of what scant prosperity there is. The tepid national satisfaction taken in Bernie Madoff’s terminal prison sentence should be a warning to the White House. In the most devastating economic catastrophe since Dillinger’s time, many Americans know all too well that justice has yet to be served.

I only hate the rich that are so rich they swim in their money and only view us “have-nots” as lowly peons meant to do their bidding.

I know not all rich folk are like this, but I have met a few with this instant attitude: “I have more money in my bank account than you, why should your opinion even matter to me?” That is verbatim, from a richie.

If I won the lottery of life, I would begin by paying off my bills and my parents extensive medical bills. Then it would be a trip around the world (I just discussed this with my folks actually). Followed by a higher education for me and my wife and maybe my siblings. Then a home and investments abound.

I’d start a university / self-contained community that could serve as the world’s innovation center. We could try out new technologies, social structures, and economic systems to pave the way for growth and change.

First thing I’d do is invest the money properly – that’s what most of the rich have done to either get there, maintain being there or being more there for longer periods of time (generations). It’s also what most people who win the lottery or come in to great sums of money without any experience of handling it don’t do – and end up losing it. Of course all of that is the left brain side of money.

From the other side of my brain (and my heart), then I’d do my best to resemble some of the most generous philanthropists who have ever lived and use my money to create more wealth – as Buckminster Fuller defines it — the ability for the greatest number of people to improve their livingness for the greatest number of days forward.

Thanks for your candor and this provocative post.

Cheers, Dolly

Who exactly are “the Rich”? It would seem to me that “the rich” is anyone who has more money than you. My husband and I don’t consider ourselves rich, although some people do. He has worked his ” you know what” off to get where he is today. We are comfortable in life. We do not need for anything. We have some money set aside for a rainy day and we always help out those in need. But every day I see my husband stressed out just to keep this up. Is that rich? I do hope that one day we can get to the point where he can leave all this stress behind and enjoy what he has worked so hard to build. The sooner that happens the better!

Like one of the previous comments, I don’t hate people who have more money than us. It is more important to me how they choose to use what they have and how they treat others.

Dalia,
I appreciate your observations. One can never really know how one is “seen” by members of the community, because each person has their own interpretation/story.
I will share this observation from my coaching practice and my personal life: what looks to me like “stress” and “busting one’s backside” and which, to me, is begging for relief, can be a highly desirable RUSH for another.
They LOOK like they’re stressed (and they ARE, according to our reasonable measures), but deep inside this pressure gives them great excitement, a world to conquer, a method of expiating guilt, a way of proving naysayers wrong.
They define themselves by their ability to surf the waves of business/life.
They make noise, but in my experience that noise (which takes many forms, like “Please don’t put anything else on me right now, I’m so stressed”) is really a request for attention, pity, sympathy, indulgence, appreciation, praise, and a bit of spoiling.
That stressful state allows them to remain in control of all situations because, after all, they’re under such stress every day.
The great philosopher Stephen Gaskin said, “You can always tell what somebody REALLY wants to do, because that’s what they’re doing.”