Light and Soul Coaching

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        B’H

Who wants to be a

Millionaire?

A poor man talks to G-d: Lord, what is a million years to you? He responds: My son, a million years is like a second to me.

Then he asks G-d: Lord, what is a million dollars to you? My son, a million dollars is less than a penny to me.

The man stores up his courage and asks G-d, Can I have a million dollars? And to that G-d replies: In a second.

If a genie gave us the choice between having beauty or having money, most of us will choose the later. Why? Because beauty fades always with time, while money earns interest and grows with time.

The old American dream seduced men and women to think that as long as they worked hard, they could be rich. In our times the new American dream is to make money effortlessly, like gaining it in the casino, getting your name in a sweepstake or participating in a TV show like Survivor or Would you like to be a millionaire?. We have been fed with the notion that a million dollars is simply a contest away.

When the internet boom hit in the early nineties, the dot comers became the young millionaires. Then came the crash and we saw big companies like Enron, World Com, and Tyco caught in corruption.

Today we have a more realistic understanding about what to takes to become a millionaire & to what degree are we willing to sacrifice our lives for it.

For most people accumulating wealth still means long hours & hard work. Money is difficult to amass in large amounts and the demands that enable people to make a lot of money are great.

Young graduates put on business suits, take their resumes from company to company ending usually in an entry-level job. Have you heard the complaint employers have at the interview, you lack working experience!

I used to run a job search club. I had in it many people with PhD’s, one man had 3 inventions, one spoke 14 languages, and another had built major buildings in the Soviet Union. When these men & women where out in the job market, most of the time they were told that the lacked Canadian experience. They all wanted a well paid job in relation to their education. They had to work very hard to attain financial comfort.

We can have pleasure from spiritual endeavours, arts, nature or shopping. Many people choose the later as a rewarding activity.

While it is pleasant to get something new, the nature of our physical senses is that as soon as we get satisfied, we lose interest in the object of our attention.

I remember I wanted very much a dress that I could not afford. I saved the money even by depriving myself of food  to buy it. When I got it I was thrilled. After 2 weeks of wearing my beautiful dress I felt I needed another one, because I had lost the emotion when putting it on.

If you see a young child crying frantically for a particular toy he wants, if he stops seeing it, he forgets about it completely. This is the nature of things. But if he wants his mother, he will cry to no end, and the need of seeing her will carry on till it will be satisfied.

The making of money gives security, pleasure and a feeling of freedom to acquire what we want. But it is physically impossible, said the 19^th century historian John Ruskin, for a well educated person or a brave man to make money the chief object of his thoughts; all healthily minded people like making money and ought to like it, but the main reason of their life is not money but something better than money.

We should use money as means to attain our objectives and no the objective itself.

The Chofetz Haim, a renowned rabbi of the 20^th century lived in Radun, Ukraine. He used to open his store for few hours. As soon as he would see enough money to pay for the needs of the day he would close it. He was to spend the rest of the day learning the Bible or helping people.

America was called the Land of gold. Immigrants thought that they could pick money hanging from the trees. The reality was that they were overworked and underpaid. It seems true today for the majority of us in North America, to have money we have to work hard.

We live in a time where our economy is based in consumerism. We run from morning to evening making a living. We have to pay the mortgage, children’s education including any possible extra-curriculum activities, the car, the country house, the insurance, trips abroad, saving for retirement.

We seem to be very busy working in the pursuit of money.

While being so busy, have we asked ourselves if the pursuit of money has given us happiness?

Probably we felt happy buying items we needed or wanted; we retain great memories of trips abroad, we loved the parties we organized and the food in exotic restaurants. We also gave to charities, fed the poor and participated in meaningful funds.

We can have satisfaction of the fruit of our work. It is of course part of our existence. Money is a means of attaining other objectives, but money should never be the objective itself.

The Mishna Pirkey AVot says: Who is a rich man, the one that is happy with what he has.

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