The Need for Wealth Accumulation Part 2

We accumulate wealth because we must live. And we must live well.

Our mandate is to make the best of our lives. And the best life, says St. Augustine, is a life lived for others. What is the value of wealth if we cannot share it with others? What is life if it is lived alone?

No man is an island, so goes the poetry. Behind the majesty of those words, our reality is, at the time of our birth, we complete our triune creation. By virtue of this empowerment, our birth becomes a triune birth. We become a co-creator of life, and therefore we cannot escape our multi-personal character. Our gregariousness takes us to the level of procreation, which means we cannot be happy alone. This also explains why at the right time, we leave our fathers and mothers to become one with another. We must let others live. And well.

Hence, our wealth accumulation for the purpose of sustaining us into the future should consider these "others". In fact, for most of us, our family is the main reason we toil and strive so hard. For some others, it is more than family; it includes employees and workers, or even the underprivileged. Isn't it a beautiful coincidence that in our bell curve, our productive time and the time we begin a family are almost simultaneous events? Our taking responsibility for others goes with the rise in our productivity.

And so with our physical strength.

This is one reality we must face. As we evolve and recede, our sustenance becomes not only a matter of food availability but of our system's ability to be sustained. The bell curve indicates that our physical strength reaches a certain crest at the ascent, and then gradually recedes to a point of settlement at the descent. The system will stop predictably according to a predetermined time in the future but may equally stop without notice. We evolve, we recede, we go. And this "going" can be anytime.

What all these mean is that we know what life is all about, its extent, its nature, its follies, its joys, its lows, its peaks, its beginning, its ending. Though we were given this life with nothing in it, we nevertheless have the empowerment to fill it up with the meaning we want it to have. If we want to live it to the fullest, we must take care of our health, be continually productive for ourselves and for others, prepare for the future via a well-thought out wealth accumulation program, and enjoy life as it is!

How are you doing?