While reading through the book I came across a very entertaining and thought provoking (at least for me) line.
“They glanced around at each other almost furtively, embarrassed, as Americans always seem to be, by the raw fact of their own success – as if cash were hardcooked eggs and affluence the farts that inevitably follow and overdose of the same.”
Now I don’t believe this is the case 100% of the time, but I do believe there is truth in that line. I also don’t believe that this always applies to wealthy people, just to the wealthiest people in a specific environment. I myself have felt this from time to time even though I am far from rich and always have been.
The thought provoking aspect for me is not that the embarrassment is there, but why is it there. I believe the answer is due to the negative feelings a high amount of people in the world hold toward persons of wealth. These people seem to think that being “wealthy” is synonymous with “greedy and corrupt.” I disagree with this mostly because it is not true, and partly because it is another way to throw people into groups and judge them as such (which seems to be all the rage these days).
What I believe to be true is that you can find greed and corruption with wealth maybe 50% of the time at most. Then again, those two terms can be very subjective and change based on the perspective of the individual. Another thing I believe to be true is that the wealthier an individual is the more likely they are to give back to their community or to give to charity. You can even see this behavior on this platform with whales creating systems to enable new users to succeed.
