Preface to "How to Be Rich"
Preface.
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The untold story of this first
draft was crafted inside my head. A first draft that will never transform into
words on a page. That night though, it conjured tears that streamed down cheeks
as pixie dust snow pelted my headlights and dazzled the dashed yellow lines
that flew by as fast as the memories flashing across my mind’s dashboard.
Memories that mean nothing to no one, but everything to me…
I once wrote a story of a treasure
no one could see. It was a “shitty first draft” as Anne Lamott would say, and
perhaps still is. The story was about a lost pirate ship two coworkers set out
to find and hold the valuable treasure. Instead, there was an empty treasure
chest with an inscription that read: “Real treasure cannot be found on a sunken
pirate ship, so let me give you a tip. It may sound funny, but don’t worry
about the money. When you find that valuable itch, you know you’ll truly be
rich.” That shitty first draft was a treasure I could not yet see.
It’s been said that “money can’t
buy happiness.” That is incorrect. Money can absolutely buy happiness. What it
cannot buy is true happiness. A true happiness that can only be
found in those priceless items and immaterial things.
Money brought me a black lab named
Fife, predecessor to another named Thelma Lou—but it didn’t build the
unbreakable bond between a boy and man’s best friend.
I have many pictures of Fife, and
those came from a camera that cost money—but it’s not money that pumps my heart
with happiness when I relive those memories of her life.
Credit cards fill the gas tanks of
cars that bring me places I love—but it doesn’t feel the fireworks that fused
family Fourth of July festivities. It purchased the pontoon that graced the
green waters of the Rock River, but it doesn’t provide the laughs echoed by
generations on that very boat.
Basketball and baseball shoes have tied
money to my feet for as long as I can remember—but money can’t comprehend how worth
it it was to be a part of something bigger than myself. Money wasn’t in the
locker room at the end of my last collegiate basketball game, and it wasn’t
what gave me a hug at the end of my third winless season—that was the
compassion of my teammates and coaches.
Money even bought the house I grew
up in—but it didn’t fill it with love. That came from the people inside. It’s a
place I’ll live forever, even when someone else’s money moves them in or my own
money builds a foundation somewhere else.
And money most certainly bought the
pencils and pens, and perhaps even the ink feathers, that have been used to
change the world—yet it didn’t write the words that actually did so. Words like
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new
guards for their future security.” Those words declared a nation independent and
literally changed the world.
I’m reminded of the day I sat in
environmental economics as my professor pulled a crinkled George Washington out
of his pocket, held it up for the whole class to see, and asked us “Why does
this have value?” I sure didn’t know, it’s just a piece of paper. A year later,
Northland College needs 12 million of those if there’s ever to even be another
environmental economics class. If only that pixie dust snow magically flew
Benjamin Franklins into the bank. George Washington happiness is just a part of
life, but to truly be rich, you must value the priceless things.
Treasures you can’t see, but feel. Millions of pieces of paper couldn’t solve the
college’s financial problem, but the world’s future problem solvers will be
stronger because of it.
Like every other little kid, almost
all my life I’ve been asked “what do you want to do when you grow up?” What
I’ve wanted to do has changed from one thing to another, but I now know this: I
want to do what I love. To be rich in that way. And how can Blake Richard be
rich? Creating images with words and cameras for the rest of the world to see
is a good start.
So, when I grow up, I’ll be doing
what I love—and I’ll be the richest man alive.
B. Richard
Northland College, 2024