A Single Southern Guy in America

June 16, 2003

Money Matters--Or Does It?

This morning I awoke from a dream I was having about another Arkansas Young Professionals Network meeting/mixer. For some reason, this meeting was being held in New York City. Paris Hilton was there and we said hello and talked casually for a few minutes. Some of the usual Arkansas cast was there, but not HT that I can recall. HT, you�ll remember is the nice young woman who named my last two girlfriends to me upon first meeting. When I did my background research on her in preparation, I learned quickly that she is a person that comes from Delta money and loves for people to know about it.

So, I wake from this dream and I remember that the next AYPN meeting is a week from today. I remembered HT and what I learned about her after the last meeting.

Add to this that last night, I visited with a friend who grew up with my ex, NLF, and we had a fairly lengthy discussion about her, her family, her family�s money, and her desire to flaunt her funds. Another friend who was visiting with us who is independently wealthy in her own right joined in the conversation. Her contribution came as this. �One of the best parts about having money is acting like you don�t!�

Mix in that over the past couple of weeks, I�ve decided to make a list of 20 ideas to make a million dollars in 3-5 years. Once I complete my list I�ll start drawing out executive summaries of each idea and see if I can find anyone who will back the idea. I figure if I�m going to be working fifty hours on an easy week, I might as well be working for myself.

And I got to thinking.

Why does having wealth affect people in different ways? Perhaps, its in the way people are raised. The girl I should have married and the closest one to ever being �The One� was my college girlfriend, JE. We loved each other so much, but then one night she fell into a weak moment and cheated on me. We tried to make it work for the next 7 months, but I couldn�t do it. She had moved to pharmacy school and I was still pursuing my BA and I couldn�t ever rebuild the trust I once had in her. I felt horrible about breaking up with her and when I did we both cried and sobbed on the phone. She was married a couple of years later. The point is she was one of the kindest, best-hearted people I have ever known. Trusting almost to naivete, she only bore ill will to those who had wronged her in a severe way.

And she came from money. Old money in Poinsett County, Arkansas. Old money from the Delta. Much more money than NLF�s or HT�s families counts as their wealth and their reason for being better than other people. Yet her family took me in, she took me in, and accepted me. They didn�t care that I came from a broken home, that my mother was an engineer and my dad was a firefighter. They took me for who I was and am and judged me on the merits of my character, not by the annuity or trust fund or bank account attached to my name.

Why would people like NLF and HT, with a personal wealth amount less than JE, act so haughty and turn their noses up at people? Why is it that a Paris Hilton can be so gracious and friendly to the locals of Altus, Arkansas? Is she also haughty like NLF and HT? I know NLF is the same way, and will charm you regardless of your station in life, but behind the screen there is a meanness measured by the green-ness. I couldn�t tell from the fifteen or twenty minutes I visited with Paris, but if she makes good on her intention to come back and visit the folks she met in Altus, I�ll be more inclined to think that she is not.

My core question is, �At what point does someone begin to equate personal worth as equal to personal wealth?�

All of this has been swimming around in my head for a bit now and I don�t have an answer to it yet. Perhaps, the haughty monied class suffers from a severe lack of self-confidence based upon never having accomplished anything themselves and always relying on the family�s money and position. Not to take away anything from my parents, but everything I�ve accomplished and achieved is because I decided I wanted to conquer it and then did. Mindful of the risk of sounding arrogant, I won�t itemize my list of achievements, etc. In any event, whenever I have offered my resume to a potential employer, they are always stunned to find that I have done so much with so few years in life. In the end, I would have to give the credit to my parents for raising me with the notion that I can do whatever I set my mind to while balancing me with the principle that �every person puts their pants on one leg at a time.�

Given all this, I will finish my list of ideas of how to make a million in 3-5 years. I will go after it and, Lord willing, I�ll make it. And being freshly monied, I vow here and now to not be like HT of NLF. I�ll still be the same ole Adam. (I may get a new truck though�)

Posted by Adam H at June 16, 2003 09:26 AM ~ Link Cosmos | Trackbacks (0)

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