Yes, I Want To Be Filthy Rich. And Yes, You Want To Too

“Having money is not everything; not having it is”

Growing up, I always knew I liked money.

And I believe I’ve never been shy to admit it. I like money.

It’s probably because I inherited my father’s entrepreneurial spirit.

I loved to watch him sit for hours on his home office making calculations, touching his forehead, and making annotations here and there. He looked so cool.

My father started his own company when I was around 8 and when I was 12 we started traveling abroad at least once a year.

Because I wanted to have my own money, I started selling cards at school when I was 9. Then, when I was a little older, I started selling candy they didn’t sell at the school’s cafeteria.

Twenty years after my handmade cards business, not much has changed: I still love money and I still want to be rich.

Now that I’m in my late 20’s, sometimes I’ve had more money than I need to cover my basic needs and other times I’ve also been kind of broke.

The kind of broke when you have to give it a lot of thought before you decide to spend 7$ on peanut butter.

Before I try to convince you that you, in fact, want to be rich, no matter how much you tell yourself you don’t need a lot of money, let’s revise a very important concept: what does it mean to be rich?

“Rich” is a wide spectrum.

Maybe you and I have different notions of what it means to be rich.

For you, maybe being rich means having seven high-end cars, wearing only designer stuff, and living in a house that doesn’t feel like a home and looks like a picture from a home decor magazine.

Maybe for you being rich equals being Kim-Kardashian rich, Mark-Zuckerberg rich, and nothing less.

I challenge you to forget about what others describe as being rich and to go deep and wonder what would make you feel rich.

Wouldn’t you feel rich if you had not seven, but 2 high-end cars? Wouldn’t you feel rich if you had, ok, one high-end car?

I’d feel hella rich with a white Tesla Model 3, so I have that one going on for me.

My definition of rich may be different from yours. For me, being rich means being free of debt, it’s being able to travel abroad once or twice a year. For me, being rich is being able to get all the groceries I need.

It’s having enough money to get all the ingredients to make those fancy recipes I see on Pinterest because I love cooking.

Being rich, in my opinion, is being so financially secure I can afford to read a book for more than one hour a day without getting anxious because I’m reading instead of making money.

No, I don’t think money is going to make me happier. I’m already very happy.

What I do want is peace of mind. I want options.

And yes, rich people still have problems.

I guess you exchange poor people's problems for rich people’s problems and that’s great in my book.

They say the love of money is the root of all evil. But I don’t think that’s true.

The real root of all evil is being willing to do anything for money, out of your love for it. The actual root of all evil is doing immoral and illegal things to get money.

So, stop saying you don’t want to be rich and let that to the people who don’t devote a single minute of their day to learn and grow.

Go ahead and find your own definition of “rich”. Describe in detail what would make you feel wealthy. And I’m sure as hell you’ll want to be it.

Sure, maybe once I get to my level of rich, I’d start feeling unsatisfied and I’d want more, right? That’s human nature, they say.

But that’s another topic for another day.