So You Think That Money Will Make You Happy?
Posted: Sunday, February 14, 2010
by e
Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation
AOL News (Feb. 14) If money can't buy you happiness, what do you do? If you're Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder, you give it all away, right down to the last penny, or, in his case, euro.
"My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," Rabeder, 47, told The Daily Telegraph of London. "Money is counterproductive it prevents happiness to come."
Actually, everyone will get the chance to live the Alpine luxury lifestyle, because Rabeder has decided to raffle off his home at $134 a ticket.
When every penny of his estimated $4.7 million fortune is gone, he says, he intends to move into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a studio in Innsbruck.
"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," Rabeder said. "I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years."
After a while, however, he felt he was working "as a slave for things I did not wish for or need," adding, "I have the feeling that there are a lot of people out there doing the same thing."
What brought him to his current conclusion? A three-week vacation with his wife in Hawaii, plus gliding trips to South America and Africa left him with feelings of guilt, he said, and the sense that there was a connection between his wealth and the poverty of the people he saw.
"It was the biggest shock of in my life, when I realized how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five-star lifestyle is ," he was quoted as telling the Telegraph .
Since selling off some of his possessions, with lots more looking for buyers, Rabeder says he has felt "free, the opposite of heavy," which was the feeling all his wealth gave him.
All his money will go to the non-profit Mymicrocharity, which Rabeder says he has set up to offer small loans to needy people in Central and South America, and to encourage development and self-employment in the region.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Yeah e, one of the beetles songs. "I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love"Or in Mr. Rabeder's situation, it won't buy him happinessHi David, has it warmed up in Fla yet! I have some friends in Naples that froze last week! Yep, other than a warm, quiet, dry place to sleep, enough food and some medicine, money can be a lot of trouble.It was 29 degrees when I woke up this morning. It is now 53 degrees so its warmed up some.Wow! Colder than the Hill country of Texas! That's really cold for the Sunshine State.
One thing is missing from this article - a link to where we buy a raffle ticket would be good!!
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