Why does it feel sometimes as if it is so hard to become rich?
Becoming rich should be easier, right?
When we are in high school, the game is to be popular and attract the hottest girls, or guys...
In college, the game remains much the same, except that grades and future "career" stuff such as internships play a bit of a role, too...
And then we graduate from college, enter the real world -- get a real job, start paying our own rent, etc.
And what do we discover? We learn that the currency is now, well, currency itself: those with money have life a bit easier in our society, and get to live on their own terms, just as in high school the most popular jock or prom queen got away with more.
Make no mistake, in our capitalist society, money is how we are judged and ranked. Becoming rich is hard for two fundamental reasons: 1) we are surrounded by products we want and 2) competition... For every dollar I make in the stock market, someone else loses a dollar. When you get that killer six-figure job, that means someone else did not get that job. We pretend it is not so, but our society is fiercely competitive.
Wealth building is an important activity. Tonight I was in a cab and we drove past another cab with an ad on it for ING Direct. It said, I believe, "Saving. Lifetime Warranty."
It made me mad that I had wasted so much money today buying things I don't really need! You are probably in the same boat:
-- designer clothes
-- expensive cell phone bill
-- $300 iPhone or BlackBerry
-- vacations to get away from the monotony of work
-- premium cable channels
-- rent or mortgage
...on and on.
The only way to break free is to save a portion of your income, no matter what. And to invest that income wisely.
You won't get there overnight, but you will get there. Sometimes I get discouraged, because I am still not where I want to be financially. But then I remind myself how much progress I have made in the last year, since I stopped pretending to "hate wealth" and accepted the fact that, yes, I want to be one of those rich people I used to sneer at -- I want total financial freedom. I want to be able to travel the world in style. I don't want to be tethered to a 9-5 boring office job for the rest of my life.
Becoming rich is hard. Any personal finance guru who tells you otherwise is a liar. But the struggle will make the destination that much sweeter when I finally get there.
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