The ad goes something like this: “This week’s lotto ticket is worth 40 million and as your dream coach I’m here to help you dream to the max.” The dream coach helps you maximize the focus on ‘me and my pleasure.’
“There’s a joke in financial planning circles, if you have an enemy, give them a lottery ticket,” says Ric Edelman, chairman and CEO of Edelman Financial Services. “One of the worst things that can happen to you is to win the lottery.”
Some studies have shown that 70 percent of lottery winners who win less than $10 million are bankrupt within a few years. They fritter away the money. “They think it’s a bottomless pit,” Estate planning companies indicate that most lottery winners lose it all within three years. For many, lotto winnings turn into a curse. The list of those who have squandered their prize money while suffering tremendous heartache is long; some regret ever winning.
One financial adviser reminds us: “When you win the lottery, you win money, you don’t win happiness,” Edelman, a financial planner who has considerable experience helping people with ‘windfall’ earnings, makes the following observation: “When you compare lottery winners to the overall population, there is a dramatic increase in the likelihood of divorce, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide.”
So, what does it mean to be wealthy? What does it mean to you to be wealthy? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines wealth as “the abundance of valuable material possessions or resources.” In western language that is the combined value of my fixed assets.
Somewhere I read that the word “wealth” actually comes from two Old English words; “weal” (meaning well-being) and “th” (meaning condition of) which when combined means “the condition of well- being”. That is significantly different when compared with the common usage of the word wealth in our culture.
The condition of well-being: That reminds me of the words of Jesus when He said, “What is the profit of possessing every conceivable worldly treasure and losing one’s soul?” In other words, there is a value that transcends material possessions.
My wife and I have three children, twenty- eight grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. From my perspective that is a valuable asset that goes beyond the net-worth of Bill Gates. Who can measure the value that these people will deposit in their spheres of responsibility?
Do you know the name George Washington Carver? This man was a slave boy, born on a farm in Diamond Missouri. The owner of the farm was Moses Carver, a white farmer who was against slavery but needed help on his 240-acre farm. Through a series of providential events, George Washington Carver was able to graduate with a master’s degree in agriculture. He introduced the idea of rotating the cotton crops with nitrogen rich legumes like peanuts. He then developed some 300 uses for peanuts to utilize the surplus that came from the crop rotation program.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation for Carver to receive his own monument, an honor previously only granted to presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The George Washington Carver National Monument now stands in Diamond, Missouri.
Was the wealth of Moses Carver simply the value of the land that he owned? Was it the productivity of that land? Or can we see that there was enormous wealth in the ‘slave boy’ that lived on that land?
As I write this, there are many life situations that come to mind. My wife’s father was the pastor of the Baptist Church we attended in Crossfield, just north of Calgary. His life ended in a tragic car accident in 1956, Dad MacDonald was the epitome of servanthood. He brought his helping hand to anyone regardless of religion, race or social status. On the afternoon of his funeral, every business in Crossfield was closed. Dad MacDonald enriched our community.
Then there was my own Dad who hauled the groceries and supplies for Crossfield and Airdrie. He was accosted by a man who got off one of the freight trains in Airdrie. Dad offered him food and lodging for a few days in exchange for his help. He was able to get him a job on one of the farms in our community. This man went on to get a college education and then go work in Peru where hundreds benefited from his work.
How would you measure the wealth of Dad MacDonald and my Dad? Is it the sum total of the assets they possessed or the ripple effect of the good they deposited?
There is an intangible, non-measurable component to wealth. How do you measure the value a teacher deposits in helping a student shape their dream and prepare to invest their lives in enriching the world of their responsibility? What is the net worth of the Doctor who spent approximately 10 hours performing a rare chest surgery that saved the boy’s life? When the parents thanked him his response was, “No, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to use my God- given skills to save a life.” The boy grew into manhood and has brought positive benefit to hundreds.
I close with a question: “How do you dream to the max?” Does your dream enrich the lives of others or pamper the temporal desires that end with time?
Duane Harder
