Tales of the Talking Tiger

“Brad buys $325 million boat“

Did I read correctly? $325 MILLION?

I assumed my eyes weren’t playing tricks and read on – “Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are treating themselves to an Italian luxury yacht fitted with a swimming pool, a heliport and a submarine.”

If the article is true (this is the second assumption I made) then we are witnessing greed on a mind-blowing scale. It staggers me that anyone can a) have this amount of money, and b) spend it on something so trivial and self-gratifying.

What else could you do with $325 million dollars? You could hook up with World Vision, Compassion or one of the other child support charities and based on the $1 a day, $30 a month model, support over 902,000 children for a year. Or, support 90,000 children for 10 years. I’m sure $325 million would also go a long way in finding a cure for aids, ridding the world of malaria or improving access to clean water.

Yet in writing this I’m forced to look at myself. Sure, $325 million is a lot of money in anyone’s language. But our greed is all relative to our means. Whoever we are, it is very easy to use our financial resources for our own self-gratifying purposes. We can be sucked into the lie that by accumulating more we will be happier, our lives will be more enjoyable and we will feel more fulfilled.

We fail to look at the world around us and see the critical need and more importantly, our capacity to do something about it. You and I might not have $325 million but I’m betting that we both have money that could be directed away from ourselves and used for the benefit of others in much greater need.

It’s very easy to point the finger and explain how the world would be a much better place if other people picked up their game. It’s much harder for me to look at myself and see that this is an area where I need to pick up my game too.