by
Jim Rohn
(
This post shows how remarkable Jim Rohn's wisdom is. He was able to transform some of the most complex ideas and make it easily understood by ordinary men like us. About accumulation of wealth and living life analogy with life and art is simply genius. My take away is the getting rich is an exact science while living a wonderful life is like coming up with a painting on a blank canvass...it is up to you and that's the beauty of it. Now, live a remarkable life! Would want to see the masterpiece that you will make of it! )
In my years teaching people to be successful, I have seen
that basically people break their lives down into two major parts: wealth-
building and the rest of their lives. Having done a lot of reflection on these
two topics—wealth and life—I am coming to some new conclusions about how to
perceive the two.
Until recently I thought that there was a significant
difference in how we should tackle the two areas. In fact, I thought that the
two topics should be addressed in almost opposite fashion.
You see, wealth-building is just math. While life—Life is
art.
Think back with me to high school. Most of us were required
to take math and most of us probably took art as well.
Now, think about your final exams in the two areas. Your
math paper was graded on hard facts:
Ten times ten is always one-hundred.
Thirty divided by three is always ten.
Seven plus seven is always fourteen.
Fifty minus twenty-five is always twenty-five.
There is always just one answer in math. The answers are
hard fact, set in stone. Math is a science. It is formulaic. You can know the
outcome before it happens, every time.
But what about your final art project? Art is much more
subjective. "Beauty," they say, "is in the eye of the
beholder." There is no one right answer.
Think of the different styles of the famous artists:
Renoir. Monet. Picasso. Rockwell. Warhol.
Different people find different styles beautiful, and that
is what makes art, art.
So how does this fit with wealth-building and life?
Wealth-building is like math:
If you add $1,000 to your retirement account each month and
gain 7 percent interest over 20 years, you can know now how much you will have
then. It is math. If you buy a rental property for $200,000 now and it
increases in value by 3 percent a year, you know exactly how much you will be
able to sell it for in 10 years. The beauty of math is in the knowing. You can
work the system, set it on auto-pilot and the math does the work for you, and
you know the outcome.
But life? Life is art. And that is the beauty of life. You
do not know how it is going to turn out. Life, like art, is always changing.
Different people provide different colors. When you make a mistake, you can go back,
erase it or even paint right over it. You can change the scenery. Life, like
art, is ever evolving, and what looks good to one person is of no interest to
another. And that is what makes life beautiful.
Another lesson I think we can draw is that in life we should
do our math, of course, but life isn't made up of just wealth-building.
Wealth-building should serve our ability to live our lives. Jesus, the master
teacher, said that our lives are not made up of the abundance of our
possessions. He didn't mean that possessions aren't good, just that wealth
isn't what life is all about.
So let me ask you: Are you spending more time on your math
or your art? Do your math. Everybody should do their very best at their
wealth-building plan so they can take care of themselves and their families.