Alright. Here we go. We all had this thought one way or another. “What would you do if you were rich?” Or, “What would you do if money wasn’t an issue?” Blah blah blah. We always go off on a list of things we would buy starting from a Ferrari to a mansion to a private jet…You know? All the cliche? And then we come back.
To reality. Where we realize and accept the fact that we are just broke college kids trying to invest a lifetime of our savings to get an education.
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It is unfortunate that we all don’t start out our adulthood with a small loan of a million dollars from daddy so that one day, we can run for president. We all learned that you need two things to be a president of the United States. Money and a twitter account.
I mean a president is still better than having this guy lead your country.
Okay, politics aside, let’s talk about what I would do if I were $Rich$.
First of all, I came to peace with the theory that the only way I would become rich would be by winning a lottery. Not poetry. The lottery. My best shot. To become rich. Or if Oprah feels like sharing her wealth with me.
If I were rich first thing I would do is to set my boundary. It is unfortunate how greed comes into play to ruin people’s lives when they suddenly become wealthy.
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I would set aside enough savings for me to have enough money to pay for my parents’ retirement fund and my future kids’ college savings. And a few more bills for myself in case I financially fall apart or have a midlife crisis and suddenly decide I want to audition for American Idol. But just enough so I don’t go bankrupt. What would I do with rest of the money? Okay. Here is the thing.
Back in junior year, I took a winter term (Equivalent of Jan Plan here at Colby) course on philanthropy. During the class, each of the students were representing a non-profit organization. We were required to prepare a presentation to sell a pitch to our donors to win $2000 for the organization we were representing. I was representing The Greater Boston Food Bank. If you don’t know the organization, you just have to know their super powerful slogan: “$1=1Meal” And when I met with the representative of the organization, I promised them that I would win them the $2000. I didn’t. My presentation came in 3rd place out of the 4 people in the class. If I were rich and had the financial stability to share my wealth, I would like to keep my promise to the organization and make a donation. Because the philanthropy class taught me the importance of giving back, because sharing can go a long way like a ripple effect.
And I would probably donate some money to Brooks and Colby so that students can continue to get their education without worrying about the tuition. And I would hopefully be back in Great Pond Road, North Andover MA one day and be teaching. And occasionally writing poetry. But not making enough money out of it. But that’s okay. Because I had that money I set aside. Remember?