The other day I met one of those all too common persons, a Poor Rich Man.
He owned several farms, besides houses in town, stocks and bonds in the vault, and money in the bank.
Yet he was Poor. He had the essence of Poverty in his mind. Because he was afraid he might come to want, because he was suspicious of everybody, because he worried over his possessions, and because he wanted more.
For Poverty is not lack of things; it’s a state of mind.
Rich folks are not they who have abundance, but they who feel abundance. As a man thinketh, so is he.
You are rich only when money doesn’t worry you. And if you have only two dollars, and don’t fret over what you do not have, you are richer than the man who has two million dollars and can’t sleep o’ nights because he hasn’t four million dollars.
Poverty is not lack; it is the pressure of lack.
Poverty is in the Mind; not in the pocket.
This Poor Rich Man I spoke of was fretting over the grocer bills, and the cost of ice and gas and electricity. He was fighting to keep down the wages of the servants. It hurt him when his wife wanted money. He complained because his daughters spent so much. The demands of his workmen for more wages pained him like a sore toe. He haggled over the price of everything he bought.
In fine, he had every last one of the symptoms and inconveniences of Poverty that his washerwoman had. And more. And if he felt the pangs of Poverty, and if money worried him, and made him miserable, can you tell me what difference there is between him and a hobo?
The only use of money is to give you ease and comfort, to drive away your fears, and enable you to live in spiritual freedom. If it does not that, then, no matter how rich they may call you, you are poor.
And, if you can have that feeling of freedom, that sure belief in tomorrow, that sense of abundance, which money is supposed to bring, but hardly ever does bring, and if you can have all this just by using your will power, and changing your attitude of mind, in other words, by Rich Thinking, which is easily attained, instead of by Accumulation, which is slow and laborious and uncertain, isn’t this “the more excellent way’’?
Think on this! If you want to be Rich, why, BE RICH; it’s easier than GETTING RICH. Try it!
