There are always many views of a topic. Usually one’s view is shaped by one’s history. It may be from the recent past. It may be from some source that we really can’t identify. But it might be a good idea to question the view and its source. It is not a bad idea to subject your view to a filter of reason.
One that I have encountered recently is my view that the excessive wealth of many business executives is a very bad thing. It isn’t fair many of us say. Why should one person get such a huge piece of the pie?
Now, let’s attach a filter of reason to this view. First, what does that person do with the large portion of his apparently underserved wealth? No doubt he buys a great amount of ridiculously expensive toys and baubles. But, for the greater part he probably spends only a small fraction of his wealth. What happens to his remaining wealth? It more that likely is managed by some investment company for even more wealth. I might inject that this may not be such a bad thing except that if it is contrived to avoid tax the profit become egregious to all of left out. If we can assume that it is invested for other business that give capital for new businesses or industry, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing. It is just money going around. Another consideration is that if that huge excess bonus is divided up amongst all of us more deserving creatures, none of us would get enough to afford more that a dinner out. As for our undeserving executive, there is quite a bit of evidence that preposterous remuneration does not make his life particularly happy.
It would be great to have feedback about this. I welcome your comments and criticisms.
About the Author
Occupation: Retired Civil Engineer
I am one of those 16 year old boys trapped in a 67 year old body. I still have many expectations of things that I can do yet in this life.
I started in a small town in southern Idaho. I took an interest in skiing in the eighth grade and it has been a factor in many of the decisions of my life. It has led me to many great places and I have enjoyed the incredible winter outdoors from Magic Mountain where I skied and worked as a kid to the Bugaboos in British Columbia to the Vallee Blanche in Chamonix, France. I went to school at Utah State University in Logan Utah because of the great skiing nearby. I graduated as a civil engineer and enjoyed a great career not necessarily as a great engineer but what I leaned being an engineer. I learned early on from a contractor back in Idaho about how to pay attention to the realities of the construction world. That real school education paid of for me endless times throughout my career.
My career was not one of consistency. I broke off many times from my professional path and went on other explorations of the natural world. I went to Europe with a couple buddies for six months in 1965 and prided myself that I spent only $1800 including airfare. We skied, camped all through Europe, went down through Yugoslavia to Greece, ferried to Italy and Spain, saw the Gran Prix de Monaco and Lemans and then went to Hamburg and bought old war vintage BMW motorcycles and went through Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
That was just something to whet my appetite for after a few more years of civil engineering, I decided to go to Europe again and this time we ended up in Nepal. I returned home without my companion but returned to visit again after I had finished an engineering project in Japan. After stops in Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma I went on to Calcutta which everyone should see and experience and then went by train to New Delhi and then up to Dalhousie. There, I was met in the winter snow by the new husband of my old companion. His name is Lawa and we have been friends now for 33 years.
We all assembled again and set off for Bodhgaya, India where the Buddha conquered ignorance and where there was scheduled the first reunion of Tibetans since many of them had escaped Tibet in 1959. The reason for the gathering was the first teaching of the Kalachakra by the Dalai Lama since leaving Tibet.
It was an amazing experience that included an initiation by Kalu Rinpoche. I lived with my friends and Lawa did most of the cooking. At one time I was able to sit just a few feet away from His Holiness and had a new Nikon and many rolls of film which were made into historic photographs.
But the event that changed my life and made me certain that my travels and sensual indulgences of many years were not in vain when I attended a Vipassana Course in Pratapgarh, India. It was there that I discovered something that has served me all the rest of my life and serves me now. It was how to observe my breath and how to understand impermanence at a really subtle but life changing level. It was a course of ten days of silence. That alone will give you a new perspective.
Life since then has been full of gratitude and inner peace even though I have been through turbulent events like all of us.
