Those of us who like to read do so incessantly. As a voracious reader with a decent memory, I tend to recall what I have read in the past to what I am reading in the present and establish trends and patterns. This is interesting to me. Probably not to anyone else. In that vein of thought, I recently noticed that social media was carrying a deathbed confession from Steve Jobs. Mr. Jobs has been gone from this plane for some time, so I read it.
It was rather long, considering its forum. It expounded how, on his deathbed, he offered advice about not paying attention to the expensive watch versus the cheap watch. In such a fashion, this article compared side by side different articles that common folks consider important for their comfort. After all, don’t we all desire a lovely home, a good car, decent clothing, and the other goods our hard labor has to offer? In this article, he emphasizes that this is all trivial when faced with death. It stated point blank that we should forget about all the things that he had and settle for less.
Before writing this article, I’ve given this some thought. First of all, shortly after Steve Jobs’s untimely death, his family reported that he had departed from this world peacefully and that his last words were something along the lines of “Beautiful,” implying he was seeing something. I recall thinking at the time that, in the end, he served us yet another kindness by offering a glimpse of feared death as beautiful.
Secondly, I started to analyze how is it possible that the greatest salesman this century has seen spend his last moments telling us what to buy and what not to buy. It sounded ridiculous and made up. If anything, Steve Jobs was never a ridiculous person.
Two important facts about Steve Jobs’ death: He chose his death since he chose to not receive medical attention, a surgery that would have saved his life. He said he did not want his body ‘opened.’ Whether he regretted that decision or not is unknown to this writer. Another fact relevant to his death and the article we are discussing is that prior to and during his death, Jobs had commissioned a massive, multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art yacht, which contradicted his deathbed spending advice. He consumed like the billionaire that he was all the way to the end of his days.
As I said at the start, there are many of these little and big pieces of media advising us on how to be happy and poor. This is ridiculous. If poverty is your lot in life, well, of course, make lemonade from your lemons, but stop listening to the rich telling you to embrace it as if were a good, honorable thing to do. Be poor, shut up, and don’t annoy the rich by complaining.
If I may suggest. When you encounter anything that offers advice from the standpoint of the rich towards the poor about how they would like to be poor, how they would behave if they were poor, and how happy you should be because you are poor…walk away and slam the door. You are being offered poisoned Koo-Aid. Fight for a better life and your share of the pie. Bill Gates will funnel all his money to his children.
Thank you for reading.
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