There’s been a lot of talk about the rich poor gap recently.. and as mentioned in my earlier article “Poor People”, much of the unhappiness experienced by the rest of us is derived by comparing ourselves to the rich.
I believe we should leave rich people alone.
Firstly, they became rich through some mechanism of meritocracy. Even if you are born into a rich family, your parents, or grandparents must have done something to accumulate enough wealth to have afforded good lives for their offspring. This is their right of luxury- the execution of the rewards they have reaped from meritocracy.
Secondly, don’t all of us want to be rich? I believe so. We are just sour that we aren’t. I want to be rich one day. But imagine the day you become rich (from poor), the whole world starts being annoyed with you just because you made it. Because you were smart. Because you were better. Why can’t we accept that we’re not rich because we’re not good enough? Because others are better than us? That we just cannot ‘make it’?
A good society is not one that thinks of all kinds of ways to make the rich poorer and the poor richer, it is one that tries to create as many opportunities as possible for anyone to become rich. Create a vibrant economic landscape that is start-up friendly ect. With more regulation and taxes ect, the harder it will be for young Singaporeans to strike it big.
As long as we work towards creating more opportunities, then we have to accept that if we are not rich, it is our own fault. And we have to stop blaming the government for it. It was recently reported that 17.1% of Singaporeans are millionaires. That means you’re either in the top 20% or not. How many countries in the world, where you just have to be in the top 20% of the citizens to become a millionaire? I don’t think there are many.. we should appreciate these odds..
Work towards being in the top 20%! And once you’re in it, you can choose to migrate to like a hundred other countries and live like a King if you choose!
SG Bangla
TRS Contributor
*The author blogs at http://sgbangla.wordpress.com/