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Why are so many attached to wealth?

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
In my experience, how the wealth was gathered is usually reflected in their overall behaviour.

Someone who started out "poor" or as middle class and worked his way up to becoming a billionaire simply by putting in the hard work, doing what needs to be done, and most likely also being lucky enough to have made the right decisions at the right time... in my experience such people will usually understand the value of a single dollar, be humble enough to remember where (s)he comes from and what it took exactly to get where (s)he is today. These are the people that will have much respect for the mailman, the garbage collector and the hamburger flipper.

As for those that are rich simply because the parents were rich and didn't care to properly educate their kid...
Not so much.


Off course I'm painting a stereotype here. I'm kind of forced due to the topic.
Obviously you'll find "exceptions" to these stereotypes everywhere.

Which type do you feel is the more common? I find it hard to guess because we're skewed by what we hear, and the more extravagant spenders do make the news, but personally I think the humble rich are more common.

The Everyday Lives Of Frugal Billionaires
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
If people do not agree with me that it totally fint, i have no intention of doing things differently in what i say here, because i only speak from my own understanding and spiritual cultivation. If you do not like what i write or disagree, no problem.
Yes, you have no intention of doing things differently or even listening to questions or challenges to your world view. Anyone who thinks differently is blind and you’ll never even consider the possibility they might have some valid points, that the truth isn’t necessarily exactly as you believe, even if it is only slightly different.

As a buddhist i see life thru the teaching and my own experiences from living this life. And from what i see people today are more obsessed with owning expensive things then they are of being spiritual curiouse. fewer and fewer people go to the religious houses around the world, more and more of the spiritual teaching has been removed from schools. People do not seem to value the moral code that religions teaches.
You seem to be conflicting spirituality and religion when they’re two very different things. You’re also presenting religion as a singular concept when it covers countless different (and often diametrically opposed) belief systems. And again, you’re directly asserting that everything in the past was automatically so much better than everything now without any factual or logical basis to back it up. You also throw in the all too common insult that if our morality isn’t based in religion, it automatically has no legitimacy.

When a spiritual teacher speak today, there are many who reject his/her teaching because why would they follow some set guidelines? that is difficult for them because they want to be "free"
Including you. There have been thousands of people claiming to be some kind of “spiritual teachers” and I guarantee you’d disagree with almost as many of them as I do. :cool:

To be spiritual means (to me) to be able to help others who struggle in the world, it means being good to anyone, even they tread me with evil. I do not want to be one who do evil to others. Why would i hate someone?
Why would I? I’m totally in favour of the kind of principle you describe there and do my best to follow it in my flawed humanity. It’s essentially the famous Golden Rule, a concept that is wider and older than any specific spirituality or religion you might care to focus on. Are you saying I’m incapable of following that principle because I’m not “spiritual”?

But today when we try to explain what is a good path, a few people will spit in our faces because they hate to hear that there is a better way to live.
Yet you literally just said the same thing happened to Buddha and Jesus, which challenges your “everything is getting worse” argument. That kind of thing will always happen regardless of what you’re saying but if you approach this form an arrogant position that you’re unquestionably right and everyone else should follow your ideas if they’re going to be good and moral, you’d rightly be challenged. After all, if someone else came to you with their very different religious viewpoint and said you were blind to the truth and could only be moral if you followed their principles, you’d challenge them just as strongly.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Yes, you have no intention of doing things differently or even listening to questions or challenges to your world view. Anyone who thinks differently is blind and you’ll never even consider the possibility they might have some valid points, that the truth isn’t necessarily exactly as you believe, even if it is only slightly different.

You seem to be conflicting spirituality and religion when they’re two very different things. You’re also presenting religion as a singular concept when it covers countless different (and often diametrically opposed) belief systems. And again, you’re directly asserting that everything in the past was automatically so much better than everything now without any factual or logical basis to back it up. You also throw in the all too common insult that if our morality isn’t based in religion, it automatically has no legitimacy.

Including you. There have been thousands of people claiming to be some kind of “spiritual teachers” and I guarantee you’d disagree with almost as many of them as I do. :cool:

Why would I? I’m totally in favour of the kind of principle you describe there and do my best to follow it in my flawed humanity. It’s essentially the famous Golden Rule, a concept that is wider and older than any specific spirituality or religion you might care to focus on. Are you saying I’m incapable of following that principle because I’m not “spiritual”?

Yet you literally just said the same thing happened to Buddha and Jesus, which challenges your “everything is getting worse” argument. That kind of thing will always happen regardless of what you’re saying but if you approach this form an arrogant position that you’re unquestionably right and everyone else should follow your ideas if they’re going to be good and moral, you’d rightly be challenged. After all, if someone else came to you with their very different religious viewpoint and said you were blind to the truth and could only be moral if you followed their principles, you’d challenge them just as strongly.
I do not say everyone should follow what i do or say :) My OP was only to get a discussion about why people today seem to be less religious or spiritual and more of obsessed with money and fame.

You can always question my way of doing thing, that is fair becuse i happen to ask same about others. Why do you do as you do. I am not shy of asking the difficult questions. And you are right in asking difficult questions toward me.
If i have chosen to not answer or answer differently then you excepted me to do in past post or answers in other posts, that can have multiple answers to why i did not answer. Examle i do not know everything, far from it. I have my way of seeing thing (not always the correct way) But just as everybody else here, i am also on a journey in life. Still learning and still do many errors.
But i do wish to be helping people. and one way to help is actually asking the difficult questions.
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Wealth is handy, it keeps starvation at bay, not only for yourse
In the world today it seems like if you are not wealthy, good job and wife and kids, then you are not a happy or liked person? Why has the world become so obsessed with physical wealth?
Personally i have never been a rich person, but t has not bothered me because that is not what i seek.
But to me it look like so many people only seek wealth and big house, huge cars, and rich friends.
Why has it become like this?

Wealth can be handy, but it depends what you do with it.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Which type do you feel is the more common? I find it hard to guess because we're skewed by what we hear, and the more extravagant spenders do make the news, but personally I think the humble rich are more common.

The Everyday Lives Of Frugal Billionaires

I really couldn't say.

I know extremes on both ends.

The biggest extreme that I know off, is probably the founder of IKEA.
The dude was cheap like you wouldn't believe.

He became a billionaire but came from very humble beginnings. So much so that he made a habbit out of only buying second hand clothes etc. Which he continued to do. Billions in the bank, but the dude lived in a small humble appartment and wore second hand clothes. I seem to remember having read an article once also how he did about everything he could to make sure that none of his kids would be able to touch a single penny of his money. But perhaps I'm confusing him with someone else.

But overall, I'ld have no clue.
Also note that actively working to not have your wealth spread out in the media, is not the same as what the OP is talking about.

It's not about extravagant spending, nore is it about publicly showing your wealth every day of the week.
It is about achieving wealth as a goal in life, about how wealth is how your "life worth" is evaluated. About how accomplished you are as a person, is measured by the car you drive or the size of your pay check as opposed to how many friends you have or how respected and loved you are by your family and others.

That's quite different from living in front of a camera lens.
 

Wandering Monk

Well-Known Member
I agree with you that humanity have failed to see the value in how we used to be.
After the industrial revelution it seems like we gone down hill instead of become more moral. So many people do not look within them self anymore. they dont see the value of spiritual living

How do you measure morality? By homicides, war deaths, abortions, poverty?
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Wealth offers the advantage to buy desired things.
Some would be amazed at the strange things I've
bought, & how much they've cost. It's fun on a bun!
th
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
In my experience, how the wealth was gathered is usually reflected in their overall behaviour.

Someone who started out "poor" or as middle class and worked his way up to becoming a billionaire simply by putting in the hard work, doing what needs to be done, and most likely also being lucky enough to have made the right decisions at the right time... in my experience such people will usually understand the value of a single dollar, be humble enough to remember where (s)he comes from and what it took exactly to get where (s)he is today. These are the people that will have much respect for the mailman, the garbage collector and the hamburger flipper.

As for those that are rich simply because the parents were rich and didn't care to properly educate their kid...
Not so much.


Off course I'm painting a stereotype here. I'm kind of forced due to the topic.
Obviously you'll find "exceptions" to these stereotypes everywhere.

I think it can go either way, at least as far as respect for working people is concerned. It might be a cultural thing. In my family (or some parts of it anyway), any kind of honest work was respectable, even if it wasn't lucrative. At least it was work, which was considered better than not working. I don't know if there are many people who hold that view nowadays.
 

suncowiam

Well-Known Member
Wealth is a security and a luxury.

The ability to gain wealth starts with the government and then with the individual.

Everything else is subjective.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
How do you measure morality? By homicides, war deaths, abortions, poverty?
By words, action and thoughts. If the words harm one self or others or if the action one do harm one self or others, if we think bad about others this is seen as bad morality.

If speech, thoughts and action is without harm to oneself or others it is seen as good morality
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
I do not say everyone should follow what i do or say :)
No, you just dismiss us as blind to reality and immoral. Do you really not see how your statements will come across like that?

My OP was only to get a discussion about why people today seem to be less religious or spiritual and more of obsessed with money and fame.
And the first question in relation to any topic in that form is to honestly ask whether they’re actually the way you believe they seem. You don’t seem to wish to consider that question and I think that without addressing it, any conclusion based on the assumptions would be largely meaningless.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
In the world today it seems like if you are not wealthy, good job and wife and kids, then you are not a happy or liked person? Why has the world become so obsessed with physical wealth?
Personally i have never been a rich person, but t has not bothered me because that is not what i seek.
But to me it look like so many people only seek wealth and big house, huge cars, and rich friends.
Why has it become like this?

This is not something new Human's have always been attracted to Wealthy individuals basically, to feed off the scraps. Most people want to be happy but don't want to work for it, getting a wealthy person to be your friend puts you on easy street. Feeding off the scraps of a wealthy person also lessens your load. Having a wealthy person nearby creates opportunity.

Even though you may not know a wealthy individual you have benefited from them unless you don't use money for anything. For example whether your company is private or public wealthy individuals run it and pay you. If you own your own company wealthy individuals buy from you.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Why has it become like this?
I think it's largely due to materialism, thus the attitude that the one who dies with the most goodies wins!

A friend of mine, who was a priest who worked in India with the Brothers of Charity, the male counterpart of the Sisters of Charity formerly headed by Mother Theresa, told me that, generally speaking, probably most Indians tend to be more satisfied with their life than most Americans because they traditionally are not as materialistic and have closer family and friend ties. With us Americans, it seems that no matter how much we may own it's never enough for us.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
In the world today it seems like if you are not wealthy, good job and wife and kids, then you are not a happy or liked person? Why has the world become so obsessed with physical wealth?
Personally i have never been a rich person, but t has not bothered me because that is not what i seek.
But to me it look like so many people only seek wealth and big house, huge cars, and rich friends.
Why has it become like this?

Hi Amanaki. :)
You don't need anything on that list to be happy, but having some items on that list doesn't necessarily make you sad. :)

Where I live every service, system, protection, trade, profession etc survives on money because we tend not to use barter any more. (although I quite often do! :) ) We live in a World of digital wealth.

The trick is, how to steer one's way through it all without being messed up by it. We have got some savings of various kinds but I would not give them up to other folks because I worry about how my wife will cope when (and if) I die. And so I am careful to protect what assets we have.

But I don't pursue any status, power, wealth, rich friends, famous friends or anything else.

:)
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
How do you measure morality? By homicides, war deaths, abortions, poverty?

You forgot the graphs about how all those changes to humans have resulted in human overpopulation, unprecedented ecocide, a sixth mass extinction event, and global climate change. No change comes without tradeoffs. :D

In any case, there really isn't any measure of morality seeing as how morality is personally/culturally determined (though I suppose there are those who believe morality is objective somehow).

 
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