Giving it all away

It’s fairly widely known that Bill Gates has given away a large part of his $US40 billion ($AU48.7 billion) fortune in the fight against poverty and disease. Not content to miss the opportunity to do even more to make a difference, he’s once again encouraging other billionaires to follow his example and give away most of their money.

At a public debate in Oslo, the Microsoft founder has told the world’s richest people that they will find that they enjoy giving their wealth away.

I think all billionaires should give away the vast majority of their fortune.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t leave anything for their kids or to have a little bit for themselves but yes, I think they would enjoy it, I think their kids would be better off, and I think the world would be better off.

I’m a great believer that great wealth should go from the richest to the poorest. – Bill Gates

It’s easy for those of us without great wealth to look at Bill’s example and admire him for what he’s doing while at the same time thinking that the call to support worthwhile causes is only for those who can afford it.

I think the attitude is the same whether we have great wealth or not. We can have an attitude that says we’ve got to hang on to every cent we make or a generous attitude that looks for ways to help others with whatever we have. If we don’t develop a generous attitude when we have little we’re not likely to be generous if we ever find ourselves with wealth.

In the post Thinking about compromise by Seth Godin, he points out the fact that a lot of people who have more than enough are still trying to scrape together every dollar they can.

I know people with $50,000,000 in the bank who still don’t believe that they have enough, who still grind away at a job they don’t like trying to earn another penny.

Seth’s post is talking about attitudes to life and the way that rich and poor alike have to set their own values.

Are you waiting until you can afford it before you develop a generous attitude or are you already being generous in whatever ways you can already?

You and I may never be able to give away billions of dollars like Bill Gates has but we can still give away our time, our experience and our money to help those we can. I believe that we’ll find, just as Bill has found, that a generous attitude is far more fulfiling than the kind of attitude that only seeks to build our own empire.

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