I am no fan of Jeff Bezos. I don’t like his politics or the fact that Amazon is putting a lot of small companies out of business. But I can’t argue against the fact that he came up with a great business idea.
And I will certainly defend the fact that he can do whatever he wants with the time and money that he has. Richard Branson too. Plus the rest of us.
I am SO SICK of people telling other people how to live their lives. It’s one my biggest pet peeves.
Recently, the long knives came out for both Bezos [1] and Branson [2] concerning the money they have spent on their space flights.
WHAT BUSINESS IS IT OF ANYONE?
It isn’t.
They earned their money. They worked hard for their money. They can do what they want with it.
The reason people try to become rich is to have freedom. The freedom to do what they want and spend their time and money as they wish. They want to take care of their families and friends, spend money on their hobbies, have a nice home and cars – and spend charitably in any way they choose.
Some people are into funding education. Others like animal charities or health initiatives having to do with cancer, strokes or heart issues because someone in their family got sick and it’s a cause close to their hearts.
It’s NO ONE’S BUSINESS.
I am in animal rescue and specifically work on the issues inside of that field that I care about.
Sometimes things happen that tick me off that I need to deal with using the resources that I have available.
One of those issues happened years ago when I found out that my county was throwing the animal shelter cats and dogs that they killed into a landfill. And to make matters worse, they left a dog sitting on top of a garbage container that someone saw when they went to the shelter.
They were horrified.
I wasn’t too happy about it either.
So I made it my mission to make sure that the animals in our county that were killed (I don’t call it being euthanized) got a dignified death and were taken to the local pet crematory – which agreed to give the county discounted rates. The county had the money to do it. It was not expensive. And doing this took care of the PR problem that they were having in the media.
An animal rights person in the region sent me a scathing email about how I was wasting my time helping dead animals instead of live ones.
I emailed her back and basically told her to go jump in a lake.
I can do what I want with my time.
I was able to get the issue additional media coverage and got the community behind the idea of using the pet crematory. I went to some county meetings and met with some commissioners. Job done.
Easy peasy once you learn “the system.”
Although admittedly, getting some things done are much harder than others. But I plug away undaunted when I set my mind to something.
As far as the rest of my time and money goes, it’s pretty limited so I focus both on my interests and passions. And things that mean something to me because of personal relationships.
I am interested in helping veterans, animals, heart-related organizations, lymphedema organizations, groups that fund DNA testing and genetic genealogy to find murderers and I have a few other charities that I donate to.
I’m sure you have your own list. Maybe it’s breast cancer. Maybe it’s literacy.
The bottom line is that it’s OUR money and our time and we can do with it what we please.
We still live in America.
Even though if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.