The Guiding Principles of Getting Rich

This is one of my most important philosophies in life. I call it the guiding principle of getting rich and achieving great wealth in life. It is based on a folklore I read when I was still a child in the primary school but if you check it and compare it with what is going on in our different lives today, you will still come to the conclusion that this same philosophy is actually a moral lesson and as such still has a lot of relevance today. Let me start by telling you the same story. You might have heard about it before but then it doesn’t make any hard difference if you hear it again together with that moral lesson it brings to our awareness which I will identify as we ride along.

I call the story the story of the hunter and a talking bird.

The story had it that there was once a hunter who was catching birds that he already set traps for. He was shocked when one of the birds he had caught started talking to him.

“Wait. Please don’t kill me and I will tell you four things that will make you rich”

Talk about getting rich? Does it ring a bell? You are not alone. By the way, that is just one of the languages in our world today. The hunter on hearing that hesitated for a moment and after giving it some deep thought for some agreed to listen to the bird.

So let’s listen and hear what the bird said to the hunter.

Bird: Getting rich principle number one: Don’t allow anything you have to leave you. Don’t let go of it.

Hunter: OK…that’s quite simple. Next…?

Bird: Getting rich principle number two: Don’t cry over what you cannot get or have...

Hunter: Hmmm…. OK. I think I can do that. Next…?

Bird: Getting rich principle number three: Always make sure you listen to what people are saying, think about it properly, and make sure you reason very well before you make your judgment.

The man, flabbergasted, asked the bird why. The bird told him that many people are ready to say whatever they want to say not minding if it is a lie or spurious, just to have their way and you should never fall into the rut of ALWAYS making your judgments from what people (will or normally) say.

The man was elated probably because he discovered that those three things were so simple and he wanted to hear the fourth and final formula for wealth immediately but the bird refused to tell him unless he releases it.

To which the man complied.

The bird, now free, looked down at the man and asked him to tell him the first thing it said to him. The hunter told the bird that it was stated that he should never allow anything that he already has in his possession to go…

“But you just let me go! You had me and now you don’t!”

The man was very much disturbed when he discovered how easy it was for him to break the FIRST rule, just like that!

But the bird wasn’t finished. It cut short into the hunter’s regretful thoughts by reminding him that there is still the fourth lesson to be learnt.

Bird: Anyway listen, there is gold in my belly and you won’t be having it anymore because I am no longer in your possession.

On hearing this, the hunter broke down into crying. Thinking of all the gold he could have had had it not been for his foolishness as well as curiosity that made him let go of this cash-bird…

Which made the bird to ask him to remind it of the second principle…

The man remembered instantly and stopped crying. It flashed through his memory: You should never cry over something you cannot have!

It suddenly dawned on this guy how easy it was becoming for him to miss the whole point!

So he stops crying and told the bird that there was no gold in its stomach.

The bird laughed at him and said, “at least you were able to reason that one out…so good luck to you…”

And away it flew.

The guiding principles of getting rich and accumulating wealth in this life as postulated by the folklore bird can be summarized as thus:

You must always hold onto whatever you have. The best place I believe you can apply this principle is of course on the subject of money since we are on the subject of getting rich. I don’t want you to see this suggestion as a guide towards becoming a miser but rather it would be a reminder for anybody interested in getting money to remember to pay his/herself first. It should be seen as a guide towards the proper handling of money which includes saving and/or the astute investment of the money you have now.

The second principle makes us to know that we should never cry over what we cannot have. The implication here is that the earlier we discover that crying over what we cannot have is nothing but a wasted energy. The lesson here is that once you realize that it is of no point crying over spilt milk, you make amends and see what you can start doing immediately to get that which you want.

The third principle is the bomb. You see many money making schemes splattered here and there every day and everywhere you go most especially on the internet and you start to wonder if all these people are making all that money, why don’t they simply keep it to themselves or at least give it to some other person who could really use it?

Many people are just voicing their opinions but the problem in there is that most of those opinions are not actually coming from personal experience rather they proceed from what is called popular or generalized opinions and any conscious thinking person is supposed to know that “majority does not carry the vote” all the time! This principle calls us to think for ourselves ALL THE TIME and to consider all possible angles to a problem before making the big leap.

Now here comes the biggest problem we may encounter in this life in our daily quest of getting rich. Anybody can easily be taken advantage of if the stoke of curiosity is activated in this person. Naturally, people are curious and people tend to do very unimaginable things if this curiosity is backed up with a promise of some other thing that is even more interesting in life – money and getting rich especially getting rich quick.

So watch it my dear brother or sister before you commit yourself into that fraudulent scam or something like that you may never be able to come out from. It is as simple as that. Make sure you think properly before signing that contract paper so as to make sure that you don’t end up crying for what you cannot have as a result of believing in everything you read on the papers because you might just catch that cash-bird and open its stomach and you find yourself staring down at intestines instead of gold!

That is the lesson.

Thanks and God bless you.