G. Give Away my wealth.

This is the seventh post in the A to Z Challenge. My theme is my Bucket List. Read more about the project here. The other things on my bucket list are Ancient Ruins, Book, Coffee Shop, Date a Supermodel, Entrepreneurship and (Be a) Finisher.


Next up on my bucket list is, G. Give Away my Wealth.

I define wealth as the amount of money that I would be able to make over my lifetime.

I want to believe that it would be a lot of it. Lot as in at-least as much as Uncle Scrooge made, if not more. And for the uninitiated, his net worth is estimated to be between 21 billion and 607 tillion (not trillion but tillion). Here, do see this link.

And when I’ve made the money, I want to give it away. All of it. No kidding.

Scrooge McDuck

For this post, I am trying a format that most content farms use. Let’s see if I get more hits / comments. 

Money. Good or Bad?
So, the thing with money is, you cant have enough of it. You may be Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, Mukesh Ambani, Azim Premji, Sharad Pawar (yes the agriculture minister), Shahrukh Khan, Saurabh Garg (yes me), you always want more. I have no clue why. Research says that even if money was fake or it was play money or it was even Monopoly money, people would have as much fixation with it as they ought to reserve for real money.

Money if you ask me is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. I cant decide if its a good idea or a bad idea.

Good because it makes transactions so much simpler. And bad because by creating an instrument, we have created something that can be measured. And defined as a tangible number. And once we have a tangible number insight, we start chasing it.

Imagine if we did not have money or currency, what would we chase and how would we hoard all the money that we want to?

What is Wealth?
I define wealth as “money on steroids.”

Let me explain.

If you make enough money to pay your bills, take that annual vacation to an exotic island and buy the next shining car that comes out, you are no doubt doing well for yourself. You are rich. You have money.

If you make enough to do all of the above and you are still left with enough to up the ante, travel in business class, buy two cars, get three homes, you are doing even better. You are richer and you have even more money.

But if you do everything listed above and you still have money left and you don’t know how much, you are wealthy. You have wealth. Not money. And this wealth enables you to take decisions at the drop of the hat. Wealth allows you to buy toys without thinking about the price. Or the cost. Or the value. These three are different things.

Wealth allows you to chase frivolous dreams. Remember Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark etc? Wealth allows you to be free. You are no longer a mortal. You can even buy create an antidote to death. Some say that one of the Google founders is trying to defeat death. So on and so forth. You get the idea.

The endeavor, thus, needs to be to make as much money as we could while we can. Not because we could buy cars and all that; but also because we are talented and we’ve been gifted with the talent and drive to make money wealth. Convincing enough? Let’s go make some money wealth!

When to give? Now? Later?
The next question that immediately follows the pursuit of wealth is, when to give. While you are making money (that 10% donation that most religions proclaim that we ought to make or those things that rich people keep doing to stay in the news) or after you have hung your boots (like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett etc have done with their wealths).

I’ve heard all sorts of argument. There are plenty. Its a thing that I could write an entire book about. And here are two, one for each. Each is the most convincing argument in support of that particular. Read and decide.

Give now. Because tomorrow is too late. Because the impact that you could make today may not be required tomorrow.

Give later. Because you would have more money and thus more opportunities for impact.

Parting Words
I’ve made my decision.

I would chase wealth like its nobody’s business. I would get wealthy beyond imagination. I’d try at least. And once I have made as much as Uncle Scrooge, I would give it all away. After I have provided for my family, responsibilities and for my sustenance.

Let me tangibilise it. I’d giveaway 99% of my wealth. And when I say 99%, I will. Even if that means I would have to sell my immovable assets. Or I wont have anything to pay for my bills. Or I would not have a single paisa in my bank account. I will. I want to actually. That’s the idea of the bucket list. No?

I just hope I have the balls to do so when the time comes.

What about you? Money vs Wealth? Will you give or not give? Now or Later?