I keep thinking about how the gap between the rich and the poor gets wider and wider for each year that passes. The injustice of it. It has nothing to do with envy. I don't want huge amounts of wealth and never have. My dream as a child was never to become wealthy, but rather to have a rewarding career that paid decent wages, enough to live on with the possibility to save toward a house or car or some nice vacations. I've achieved that. I can't imagine what I would do with huge amounts of wealth--as in billions of dollars. I'd probably give it away like the philanthropists Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott. Seriously, what does one need or even do with all that money?
There's only so much one can accumulate in this life. You can't take it with you, as the old saying goes. The ultra-wealthy have multiple homes--huge homes, private jets, luxury yachts, the best of everything. But what is the best of everything? How would you define the best food ever? Or the most beautiful home? It's all subjective, dependent upon what we like or dislike. I think we are designed to be perpetually unsatisfied, always in search of the new 'best' thing on which we can spend money. But do we need all the things we buy, whether we're ultra-rich or simply well-off?
When you have to find excuses for what to do with your money, then you have too much of it and can give a lot of it away. Give more to charities than you would normally do. Do it quietly so that no one knows what you've done. Give more to your churches. Finance sorely-needed school renovations or road renovations. Donate money to local gardens and parks. Pick a cause. Me, I'd go for beautification of cities and towns--public gardens, botanical gardens, many more allotment gardens, public parks--the list is long. It would be a wonderful idea to get more people interested in gardening and growing their own food. A good idea to get young people off their phones--you can't weed a garden and scroll endlessly on social media. Organizations that help the needy and the poor need your help. Build more houses for low-income families. There are plenty of projects to support that need your help. And how you help will determine the future of many of them. Rather than buying a private jet with your millions, why not buy up thousands of acres of land to give to the state(s) with the sole purpose of preserving the land for posterity. The Rockefeller family did that The Rockefeller Legacy: Philanthropy and Conservation. We need more wealthy people like them and less of those whose flashy lifestyles and unbounded consumerism find their way into the news on a daily basis.
