GIVE BACK

Recently, a wealthy business man in my town died and to my surprise, a lot of people felt no sympathy for him or his family talk less of mourning him. The reason was not far-fetched, he lived a selfish, unsympathetic and money-driven life which made him step on many toes during his life time thereby gathering numerous haters for himself. To be honest, I had never heard people talk so badly about a deceased person as they did of this man and it got me rather disturbed.

It done on me that money and fame is really profitless if you fail to impact and put smiles on the faces around you. Of course you can never please everybody but the importance of giving back to the society cannot be over-emphasized. Remember your wealth was accumulated from the society so I'm of the opinion that it's rather unfair and in fact illogical for you to refuse to give back to it in the nearest future.

The truth is by giving back, you become more fulfilled and at the same time the society is made happy. Part of what is pulling our society back today is the fact that people everyone just wants to gather wealth but no one is thinking of giving back. Another fact is that most wealthy people can't exhaust their gathered wealth in their lifetime and therefore leave them for their families after death. But most of them fail to realize the havoc this inherited wealth can cause. I know a number of wealthy people whose families fell into disarray after their death, over inheritance-related issues. Most of them never got back together till this day. So I sit and ask myself, wouldn't it have been more profitable for these men to give back to the society in their lifetime and put smiles on the faces of people?

Also, many times, leaving massive inheritance for ones offspring reduces their sense of responsibility to themselves and gives them little reason to work hard and carve out a niche for themselves. To many of them, their inheritance can last them a lifetime. This eventually makes them under-achievers. Some eventually misappropriate the wealth and fall back to zero later in life. So instead of piling up wealth for family, why not give back to the society? It's good to leave inheritance for family quite alright, but what should be left should be something that would be sufficient to be a stepping board for them to become achievers rather than leaving wealth that would last them their whole life and give them less reason to work hard for themselves.

In a nutshell, give back to the society from which you got your wealth. It might require you setting up a foundation and pumping a great deal of funds into it. But the joy and pleasure you will derive from it eventually will be worth while at the end of the day. So as you gather your wealth today, think of what you can give back tomorrow.

Thank you so much for reading this post and I leave you with this quote:

"I believe we all have a responsibility to give back. No one becomes successful without lots of hard work, support from others and a little luck. Giving back creates a virtuous cycle that makes everyone more successful."

-Ron Conway