“John, you jerk! Why are you defending those selfish billionaires?!! They spent $250,000 to ride in a submarine!!!! That money could have helped a lot of poor people!!!!”
Before we tear into those selfish billionaires for the way they spend their money, let’s crunch some numbers. A little perspective might help you be more content with your life even though you share the planet with humans who have more money than you.
If you have a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) and you pay $250,000 for a submarine ride, you have spent .03% of your money. Poverty level income in the United States is roughly fourteen thousand dollars and .03% of $14,000 is $4.20. So, if you are a poor person and you pay four bucks for a bag of chips, or a latte, or a laser pointer, you have used the same percentage of your money as the billionaire used to ride in the submarine.
Do you need to justify your latte purchase to strangers on Facebook? Do you owe the self-righteous, envy-filled mob an explanation about why you bought those chips? I mean, you COULD have eased someone’s suffering with the money you wasted on empty calories.
“JOHN, YOU JERK!!!! A billionaire can help A LOT MORE PEOPLE than me!!! BILLIONAIRES HAVE MORE RESOURCES!!!!”
The point (which you obviously missed) is that you and the billionaire are BOTH helping the SAME NUMBER OF POOR PEOPLE (zero). The big difference is that the billionaire doesn’t criticize you for the way you distributed your funds. That’s as it should be.
The billionaire has no idea what you did with the $13,995.80 you had left after you bought coffee so it is completely inappropriate for him to call you a selfish, greedy, immoral scumbag. The billionaire, if he’s a decent person, should give you the benefit of the doubt that you shared some of your wealth with people less fortunate. And, if the billionaire is a decent person, he won’t dismiss your meager charitable efforts because you, ‘could have done more.’
If you thought more like a billionaire, you’d be a happier, healthier, less hateful person.
(1 Timothy 6:6) But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
