The Science Of Getting Rich…The Importance Of Things
This is my second post in my Wallace Wattles The Science of Getting Rich series. The first is here. It concerned Wattles’ first point, which is not only that it is good to become rich, but that we have a duty to become rich.
I’ll explain why in a later post. For now, I want to talk about the importance of things in Wattles’ philosophy…
According to Wallace, there are three aspects to being human: mind, soul, and body.
This is not at all surprising. This idea has been central to Western thinking for thousands of years.
What is surprising about what Wattles has to say is this.
We develop our bodies, our souls, and our minds through the use of things!
By “things” Wattles means objects, stuff!
And this makes total sense.
How do you develop your body? Exercise! Moving weights around. Moving your body around. Stretching your body.
The thing necessary here is a body. Other things are necessary, also. Weight equipment. (Or I guess a large rock would suffice.) Running shoes. A swimming pool. Exercise stuff.
What about mind? How do we develop mind?
I developed my mind a lot when I went to college. How did I do that?
Well, I sat in a classroom (a thing) and listened to a professor (another thing). I took notes using a pencil, an eraser, and paper (all things). I got to school in my car…when it would run (Again, a thing). I used books (things) and calculators (things, too).
But even more. What financed my education? Well, I didn’t have any money at the time, so student loans did. Are they things?
Yes.
The promissory note is a piece of paper, written on by a computer printer. To run the printer, you need electricity. Electricity gets to the printer via a wire (thing). The electricity was created in either hydroelectric or coal-fired electric plants (lots and lots of things).
How about development of the soul?
I suspect here, a lot of people are going to jump off the train, so to speak.
Yet, even here, we act on ourselves only through things.
I have thoughts. (Chemical and electric processes in my brain–things). A lot of my own soul growth has had to do with lack or times when life was not doing what I thought it should at the moment.
Still things! All things!
You want to help the sick? You do this with things. How about people who need mental and spiritual help? Still you get to them with things.
Go see a therapist. Well, there has to be an office to sit in, a chair to sit on, and then we have the therapist’s education. Same as mine described above–all things.
So, I’ve made a case defending Wattles’ idea that we only develop in mind, soul, and body by making use of things.
Now, here’s the kicker.
How do we get the use of things, for a while, or for as long as we want.
To quote: “society is so organized that people must have money in order to become the possessor of things.”
I guess in some primitive societies, say a lost tribe in Mindanao, money is not what gets one the use of things. But that’s not the case for us.
Just take the books I used for my education. Bought with money.
But what about the public library?
Well, supposing they had the book I needed, the library takes money to run. You need to build the building. Where does this money come from?
Taxpayers!
Taxpayers were given buying power (called money) by trading their time doing a given skill. That buying power represents the value of various amounts of objects. The government forces the taxpayers to pay them a certain percentage of their buying power. Some of that is used to fund public libraries.
Still, all things.
So, to wrap up.
We need to get rich in order to be able to use more things, so that we can develop ourselves in mind, soul, and body!
Development is key here. Why, we’ll discuss later.
We develop using things.
We need money to get things to use to develop ourselves.
Until next time.
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