Thoughts

You’re Filthy Rich, Be Happy!

Greetings,

The longer I spend overseas, the more I realize how incredibly rich a small portion of this world is and how sad it is that they feel poor. So many people from North America, Europe & Australia feel poor because they don’t have everything their neighbor has or what some people in the “richer part of town” have. It’s disgusting.

The reality is, countless people are dying everyday from lack of water and food. Here in Sri Lanka, the average wage for a non “skilled” aka graduate job is ~$100US a month. How ridiculous is that? To make matters worse, they work 365 days a year or close to it. In North America we complain about vacation time… If you factor in 2 weeks aka 10 days + 104 days aka 52 weeks worth of weekends and Xmas and Thanksgiving and whatever else, we’re looking at ~120 days aka 1/3 of the year.

Let us also get into health care, I used to say the system sucks. The system does suck but it’s amazing compared to the alternative. In my travels I have seen many people that really look in rough shape. The reality is, regardless of your social status which really means nothing, you’re rich and you have it all. Opportunity, freedom and access to health care.

Let us look at status? In some circles you’re popular, in others you’re a nobody. In some you’re envied and in others resented. It will always be the case. Traveling let’s you realize that if you let it sink in. I’m in Unawatuna now and it’s basically dead. Been hanging out at this one restaurant “Hot Rock”.

The Hot Rock has a large kitchen staff and they work everyday, all day. The hotel I’m staying at, the guys are here everyday and when I told them about the weekends off he was floored. His eyes lit up like it was Xmas and he was just given the best gift ever. That or how my friend who oddly enough has a double major in business looked when we told him Baghdad was not a country but the capital of Iraq.

I digress.

Take me? I haven’t done anything spectacular in my whole life. I got lucky and got into a good school, graduated with decent marks. My father found an ad in the paper for an Executive job and I just happened to have all the qualifications and fit the role perfectly. Had he not read the paper, who knows?

Then I got lucky again, if you know me, you know I”m a web guy. When I say web guy don’t think that I can fix your computer or build brilliant pages, I can’t. I just spend A LOT OF TIME online, it’s a hobby / addiction that I’ll have for life. I got lucky because I was on a webmaster forum when someone was selling a website. I jumped on it, called the guy and won an auction.

I was thinking of writing this post at dinner, just got in. Turns out I made a sale through the business for $64.99 while eating dinner and that is ~65% of the average Sri Lankan’s monthly wage. I’m sure $64.99 doesn’t have the same meaning to you as it would them. At this moment there are some people making sales for $2,000+++ and countless more people working all day for ~$2.

Just be happy with what you got. In closing here is something apropos. A friend was talking about a famous actor and all this and that. Someone said, how do you get to be that guy, stated they were jealous. My other friend quickly pointed out “There is only 1 him and they aren’t taking applications”.

Don’t get jaded by the mainstream media or the constant bombardment of advertisements t think you don’t have it all. If you have access to shelter, freedom and health care… You have it all. If you don’t reach your potential, it’s probably your fault but you can’t blame yourself, you’re already lying on a comfortable mattress, just be happy about it.

Also remember, if you are lucky enough to come from an affluent country, the only reason these countries are so attractive is because you are so filthy rich here. If you grew up here or anywhere that is a tourist destination that is a “great deal” you’d look at it differently. Your worst case scenario day is actually better than the life many people in this world dream of one day having.

Traveling has helped me see this.

I hope this update helps you see this.

Tips hat,

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