How Can I Gain The Desire For Wealth?

[bhkad]

If it's not in you to desire wealth, I think that's a good thing! It is fascinating to see people who are determined to be wealthy. I have a friend who makes a lot of money. When my husband asked him, "Are you happy in your job?," he replied, "I am making so much money, I can't complain." It was a weird and pathetic response. My husband said, "But that doesn't answer my question." I saw the expression on his wife's face--she was embarrassed. This guy is so smart, but so insecure at the same time. We became friends when we were both working for a federal judge. I stayed in the federal goverment. He went to the private sector because he wanted to make lots of money. He went to a better law school than I did. He is unquestionably smarter than I am. However, I am FAR more secure than he is. I don't know what his desire for weath has done for him. He makes a ton of money. He and his wife bought a gorgeous house. He drives a BMW. I still see him as terribly insecure.

I think your lack of desire for wealth is a great quality. Don't wish for something that isn't in your heart. Stay true to who you are, bhkad. Gaining the desire to be healthy is something I would encourage you (or anyone) to do, but wealth? Nah.

Still one of my favorite quotes:

Thanks for those words and sentiments. But there are two sides to everything. Aren't there some happy rich people who are nice, socially and fiscally responsible and good and smart and caring and emotionally secure?

I trust your interpretation of his comment, "I am making so much money, I can't complain." But there may be another way of looking at this. Consider that he might be wrestling with something other than the money, per se.

Perhaps a particular matter that makes his job emotionally trying. Something he is privvy to that he is bound not to reveal.

As a head hunter I once had a client confess something to me because my profession is known to require discretion and the weight of that revelation was as weighty as it ever usually gets in business. A business ethics situation that could result in charges. He made a lot of money but the matter that he dealt with wasn't the money he earned. By the way, the matter happened more than 7 years ago but I still haven't told a soul any of the particulars.

I bring this up not to doubt you but to make a case for the desire for riches.

So far only one person here has anything good to say about a hunger for financial wealth.

 

[DeeJayH]

Which one gave more of themselves?

which one affected more lives, that is what really matters in the end
Gates by a long shot, and he is not even done yet
Mother Theresa, as good as she was, would be nothing without donors like Gates

 

[bhkad]

which one affected more lives, that is what really matters in the end
Gates by a long shot, and he is not even done yet
Mother Theresa, as good as she was, would be nothing without donors like Gates

Enough about those two.

 

[DeeJayH]

Enough about those two.

ok, lets get back to becoming a greedy american :lol: I mean desiring wealth

 

[Jerry]

How Can I Gain The Desire For Wealth?

Everyone says they want to be wealthy but not everyone really has the desire to be wealthy.

"America's millionaires are people with the desire to be rich," says one book.

So what do you do to get that desire?

Realize that your carboard box sux and get a job.

 

[DeeJayH]

Realize that your carboard box sux and get a job.

as always :applaud

 

[GOP Socialist Soldier]

Everyone says they want to be wealthy but not everyone really has the desire to be wealthy.

Everyone wants to lose weight also, be more in shape, etc., but it never really happens.

 

[DeeJayH]

people become wealthy everyday
obviously not everybody, but just like weight loss those willing to do what it takes achieve it

in this current economic crisis a tremendous am ount of wealth has been destroyed
but if one still has cash and is willing to take some risks, tremendous wealth will be created
such is the ecoomic cycle

 

[bhkad]

Realize that your carboard box sux and get a job.

Is that how you gained the desire for riches or just made a living?

I've done one but not the other.

 

[1069]

Is that how you gained the desire for riches or just made a living?

I've done one but not the other.

If you can just hold on to what you've got for the next couple of years, you're going to feel rich.
You'll be like a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Because I have a feeling that nearly everyone is about to lose it all.

 

[bhkad]

If you can just hold on to what you've got for the next couple of years, you're going to feel rich.
You'll be like a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Because I have a feeling that nearly everyone is about to lose it all.

I don't want to give in to pessimism. But if I could take advantage of any polar shifts or reversals in global economics that would be alright.

 

[DeeJayH]

I don't want to give in to pessimism. But if I could take advantage of any polar shifts or reversals in global economics that would be alright.

give in to being oppurtunistic

 

[DiAnna]

That's funny. But it also means she's probably quite attractive.

A knockout. She never saw a designer label she didn't love, though. When she got married, her husband had to scramble to make his first million just to handle her upkeep! If he didn't have a desire for wealth before he married her, he sure as hell did afterward... just to keep the bills paid!

 

[Donc]

Marry right.

 

[Jerry]

Is that how you gained the desire for riches or just made a living?

I've done one but not the other.

In my case, yes, to both riches and a humble living....only I didn't have the luxury of a box.

 

[1069]

Bhkad, if you don't mind my asking, why is it that you want to be wealthy?
Is there something in particular that you want to purchase, or perhaps something you wish to do that requires a lot of money?

 

[bhkad]

A knockout. She never saw a designer label she didn't love, though. When she got married, her husband had to scramble to make his first million just to handle her upkeep! If he didn't have a desire for wealth before he married her, he sure as hell did afterward... just to keep the bills paid!

I think I would stay unmarried as long as possible. Unfortunately she wouldn't be able to help me that way. Unless I felt so obliged to pay a girlfriend's bills that it spurred me to perform as her hubby did.

Hmmm. That defies human nature, I think.

 

[bhkad]

Bhkad, if you don't mind my asking, why is it that you want to be wealthy?
Is there something in particular that you want to purchase, or perhaps something you wish to do that requires a lot of money?

Maybe that is the key, 1069. Without a good purpose for the wealth there is no desire.

 

[1069]

Maybe that is the key, 1069. Without a good purpose for the wealth there is no desire.

Well.... yeah.
Because money is really just metal and paper.
Why would anyone want it, unless they wanted to buy something with it?

I assumed you had some plan that required it.

 

[bhkad]

Well.... yeah.
Because money is really just metal and paper.
Why would anyone want it, unless they wanted to buy something with it?

I assumed you had some plan that required it.

No, it was more like wanting to have wealth affect me. I have had enough experiences that I am familiar with the 'scenery' at this average level of existence. I want new scenery. Expensive scenery. To see how I am in relation to it.

 

[1069]

No, it was more like wanting to have wealth affect me. I have had enough experiences that I am familiar with the 'scenery' at this average level of existence. I want new scenery. Expensive scenery. To see how I am in relation to it.

Maybe it's just my generation, or my whole upbringing, or I don't know what, but I've somehow been indoctrinated with the notion that expensive = fake.
You will not find real experiences unless you go out into the world with nothing.
You have to get your hands dirty, to experience what's real.

Expensive "scenery" is fake. It's for wimps.
If you mean travelling, there are resorts and enclaves for the wealthy all over the world, and when you arrive there, you'd never know you'd left home. They feature all the comforts and luxuries of home, and staff garbed in supposedly "native" costumery.
Is that an "experience"?
Going to a foreign land to play golf with Americans and be waited on by resentful minimum-wage workers dressed as Mayan Indians or Tahitian natives or whatever?

You'd have to leave your Mastercard and Visa behind, run away from your tour group, and hitchhike across the country with only the clothes on your back to have a real "experience".
One you might learn something from, one you might actually remember ten years from now.

That's how I feel about it, anyway.

If it's comfort you want, you can be poor and live in comfort, and some small amount of luxury.
This is America, after all.

If it's experiences and adventure you want, the only currency you need is fearlessness.
Experiences are there for the taking, and they're free.

 

[Jerry]

Maybe that is the key, 1069. Without a good purpose for the wealth there is no desire.

I see financial security as a means to free myself from the various burdens I now carry.

 

[DiAnna]

I think I would stay unmarried as long as possible. Unfortunately she wouldn't be able to help me that way. Unless I felt so obliged to pay a girlfriend's bills that it spurred me to perform as her hubby did.

Hmmm. That defies human nature, I think.

I made the initial comment as lighthearted, though true, just to bring a smile. Thing is, life throws curveballs and what once seemed crucial can lose its significance in a heartbeat. My daughter and her family, for instance, made a million in their own business, then went bankrupt in the blink of an eye. They learned who their friends were... and whose friendship their money was buying. They also realized that their pursuit of wealth had come at the expense of family, children who rarely saw them and who also had come to reject anything that wasn't extravagant and expensive.

So she was forced to become her own worst nightmare... a mom who shops at KMart for petulant, ungrateful children. She became... me! :mrgreen:

They've reestablished financial stability now, but some of the damage is irreversible. You can't relive your children's childhood if you weren't really around for it. No amount of money can recapture that.

There's a fine line between the desire for wealth for the sake of it, and the need to provide a stable, safe home for one's family. Sometimes that line blurs, and the result is rarely positive.