Why pursue wealth? Isn’t that just greed?

Many of us were brought up with that idea, though it might never have been verbalised. But it’s an example of faulty thinking. It shows up in such phrases as “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer”, which, on the surface, seems to say that as one gets richer then somehow someone else must pay the price, literally, by being made even poorer.

The weird balancing act of rich and poor

That isn’t the case at all. It is true, very largely, that the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer, but that’s more to do with the law of attraction than any weird balancing act, whereby one becoming more wealthy must be counterbalanced by another becoming impoverished. If you’re in a situation where money’s tight and you’re always up to your neck in debt, then it’s hardly surprising if you’re always focusing on how to get out of debt. But that’s the problem, right there – you’re focusing on debt, even though your intention is to do away with it. Since you’re focusing on it, you tend to attract more of it, so you are indeed forever in debt.

On the other hand, if you have no money troubles at all and you are enjoying a comfortable lifestyle, your thoughts are focused quite differently, on wealth and enjoying the things that come with it. So naturally you tend to attract more of the good things in life, that is to say, wealth!

You have a duty to pursue wealth

Wallace D. Wattles, in The Science of Getting Rich, tells us that man’s right to life means his right to have all the things which contribute to his fullest life, in all areas. In other words, his right to be rich (since you cannot have unfettered access to all those things without plenty of money). So the quest for riches is merely an expression of the quest for a full and complete life. So yes, it’s a person’s right to be rich, and in fact his duty. As Mr. Wattles says, “… it is the noblest and most necessary of all studies. If you neglect this study, you are derelict in your duty to yourself, to God and humanity; for you can render to God and humanity no greater service than to make the most of yourself. “