Last week my wife and I were watching CBS Sunday Morning. Mo Rocca (resplendent with fedora) was interviewing immensely rich lady, Eileen Rockefeller.
“How much money do you have?” Rocca interviewed fiercely. He wasn’t about to give in and hobnob. He was there to ask the tough questions.
“I have no idea,” Rockefeller answered. “I don’t even count.”
#Orly!!!
That’s supposed to indicate to us underlings how little she actually cares about wealth? Naturally, by this point, I was rolling around my chair expleting shoutatives. I was attempting to injure myself. Because I can afford that.
Saying you have so much money you don’t even bother to count it is supposed to somehow demonstrate how little you actually care about money?
I’ve never had so much money that I had the luxury of not counting it.
Stand back. I think I’m about to blow!
Even long before my Guru of Negativity days I was never the sort to fall for that “if you are poor you are really rich” crap.
“At least you have the warmth of the sun on your face. You are indeed rich!”
Fuck you. I can’t afford sunscreen. My face is going to burn like hell.
“Money can’t buy you love.”
Fuck you. Why don’t you let me find that out for myself? Gimme your money.
“You’re healthy and that’s one thing they can never take away.”
Yeah, right up to point where I die of something treatable but expensive. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Fuck you.
One thing I know for sure: The rich sure spend a lot of time and effort trying to convince everyone else that being rich isn’t all it’s made out to be. It’s no bed of platinum roses, you know. (Actually, it is.)
The fact that they are so earnest about convincing us otherwise makes my bullshit detector go off. Every time. Methinks I smell a rich rat.
But then, on the telly, she had this to say:
“Yes,” she sighed. “There is no question that the privileges have way outweighed the responsibilities, the difficulties. But where I think I feel common ground with everybody watching is that we all suffer from something growing up. And it doesn’t matter if we have money or don’t have money; we suffer in our own ways. And the net worth of our bank account is not nearly so important, ultimately, as the self-worth.”
Source: CBSNEWS.com
This pronouncement, of course, grabbed my immediate attention. I even stopped punching myself in the face.
“I knew it,” I screamed, leaping out of my chair. “I knew it! They’ve been lying to us this whole time. Being rich means the ‘privileges’ outweigh the other stuff. I knew it!!” I made a mental note to hire someone to clean up the spittle.
Finally. At long last one of them had the gumption to tell the truth.
I think that’s when my blood pressure caused me to pass out. Apparently it was a reverse Viagra situation. That’s too much blood everywhere except where it counts.
When I woke up, I checked myself up and down. Yep. Still poor. But vindicated. And that’s something they really can’t take away.
Shouts from the Abyss 
She is right. We all suffer in our own ways. You suffer, realize it, and suffer more. She suffers, realizes it and flies somewhere that sucks less.
Both of those are ways.
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I agree. No doubt the difference between $25 billion and $50 billion has little effect on happiness. But when it comes to thinks like eating foods, having a place to live and enough health care to live, I think money can have a profound effect on happiness.
I give her props for at least acknowledging that much.
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Rich people down through the ages have poo-pooed the notion that money makes their lives easier or contributes to their happiness. They make it sound like money is of the devil. They have to do this otherwise the rest of us would want some of what they have. And then there’d be no middle class for them to hire. I feel a tear coming on.
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I can’t afford a tissue right now. I’ll get back to you on that.
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That’s okay. It was only the one tear.
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She’s right…most of us suffered from one thing or another….although most of us suffered without enough money because apparently she has most of it and that truth seems to evade her.
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Well said my sweets!
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😀
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Common ground. “We all suffer from something growing up.” Sure, because not being allowed to have that pony on your 3rd birthday is so very similar to finding rat turds next to the empty refrigerator on your 3rd birthday. If she had said, “Money can’t buy you love,” she might have been a more sympathetic character. Might have.
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Well, she does what she can. 🙂
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Yeah, but if you had money and it couldn’t buy happiness, then you’d direct all the negativity at us little people.
(That’s why we’ve all united to keep you down.)
(You’re welcome.)
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That makes perfect cents.
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