Are some races inherently lazy; and are some people destined to be poor? Is life unfair, tilted in favour of the rich, who get richer at the expense of the poor? And should people who’re better-off be morally obliged to assist the less well-off?
A few months ago, someone I know sincerely questioned why, according to him, only a handful of non-white people achieved enormous success no matter where in the world they were born? He gave a number of examples to support his position but he missed one critical point: there are rich and poor people of every race, in every part of the world.
How much money we accumulate is not determined by our race, which country we come from or what family we’re born into. Our level of wealth is always determined by our habits of thought.
I once read somewhere that if you take all the riches in the world today and evenly redistribute them between the world’s rich and the world’s poor, within a short space of time, the same people who’re rich now would be rich again; and the same people who are poor now would still be poor.
What’s the deciding factor? Their mind-set.
This is probably the reason why many of the countries that needed financial assistance decades ago still need it today; and no matter how many hand-outs you give him, your poor uncle rarely has enough money to feed his family.
It’s also the reason why when the world’s rich – think Donald Trump – lose all their money, they make it all back again fairly quickly. At some point, they must’ve worried about losing their riches and so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy; but because their thoughts are predominantly about a life of riches and they can’t truly imagine being poor, they must become rich again.
In your deepest, darkest thoughts, do you see yourself as rich, or as poor? Do you honestly believe that you could, and deserve to, live a life free of financial struggle?
I still battle with this issue daily. Cultivating thoughts and feelings of prosperity can feel frustrating at times, especially in the face of a contrary ‘reality.’
But just as it takes years to form a negative mind-set about money, so too does it take time to change our mind-sets; and undo years of negative mental programming; but change we must.
No matter who you are, or how your life has played out until now, starting today, choose to adopt a more prosperous mind-set to benefit your life. You may not have had a choice about your start in life, but you certainly have a choice about the way you finish.
Stop seeing yourself as someone who can never be prosperous; and don’t speak about not being able to afford anything. When it comes to your finances, speak only life, not death.
Your habits of thought, your feelings about your life, as well as the words you use all contribute to the evolution of your life. Positive thoughts, lead to positive feelings, lead to positive outcomes.
Whenever I make this point, people immediately say, what about the truly downtrodden; people who’re starving and clearly in need of humanitarian assistance, shouldn’t we help them?
While many of us are rightly moved to try to alleviate the plight of needy people, we cannot feed all of the world’s poor until they die. We need a far more sustainable strategy; we need to teach people how to create their own prosperity. Hence the saying, “give a man a fish, and he can eat for a day. Show him how to fish, and he can eat for a lifetime”.
That’s why more people are beginning to realise that poverty eradication schemes, under whatever guise, never work. While they’re prompted by altruistic motives ÔÇô to help people improve their lives ÔÇô they usually don’t address a change of mind-set. If we wish to help people, we must help them to adopt more positive thoughts about the lives they lead.
When we attempt to solve people’s financial problems, we rob them of the pleasure of seeing the wonderful lives they can create for themselves. In the same way that some people have learned to mine their imaginations to create immense wealth for themselves, so can we all.
If we want to escape poverty, we should also learn to emulate the rich, not resent them. Appreciate what they have and decide it could be yours.
That’s how some people (and there’re countless examples), who’re born into abject poverty grow up to amass wealth far greater than those of children born with silver spoons in their mouths. It’s because while they knew what they didn’t want ÔÇô a life of deprivation- they also had a powerful understanding of what they did want ÔÇô a life of never having to worry about money again; and they pursued it and attained it.
Such people prove that God is the only equal opportunities employer; and if we’re prepared to draw on the Godly nature that exists in each one of us, we can create awesome lives.
Many years ago, a large American shoe manufacturer sent two sales representatives out to different parts of the Australian outback to see if they could drum up some business among the aborigines. Some time later, the company received telegrams from both agents. The first one said, “No business here…natives don’t wear shoes.” The second one said, “Great opportunity here…natives don’t wear shoes!”
Same situation, different mind-sets. Which of the two representatives do you suppose created an awesome life?
None of us is destined to be poor, but our thinking makes it so.
Our thoughts become our mind-sets; and our mind-sets become the blueprint for our lives, dictating what we do and expect from life.
Remember: “Nothing on earth can stop a man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; but nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.” W.W. Ziege
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