To Profit
Concert tickets. Being one of the ‘lucky’ ones to be able to purchase certain concert tickets. What, then, if someone is just so anxious to go, you can sell your tickets for more than you paid? These were not my tickets, nor was I in any way envious or wanting to attend concert of interest (you’d have to actually pay ME to attend a function with such a large crowd). But with some recent concert ticket frenzy at work, it brought up interesting discussion around resale for a profit.
I’ve read twice now, a book called Baby Steps Millionaires. Considering it’s a book on building wealth, religion is surprisingly prominent throughout. But the reason for this is, we as a society have many old paradigms or views on money or wealth being evil, immoral, or people that hold wealth to be greedy. This is the reason that author, Dave Ramsey brings this up throughout the book. A lot of our views on wealth come from misunderstanding and misinterpretations of bible scripture. Whether you are religious or not, a lot of money paradigms stem from this. So many of us now associate having wealth with being greedy or some kind of wrongdoing, as though it was not gained honestly or morally. Or also, that people who don’t have wealth, have either been wronged or have given selflessly to others, compared to wealthy people.
From his book, he gives an example of a religious view that they actually ‘view a person’s quest for profit and wealth to be inherently moral.’
From the book, page 94: “in order to provide for the needs of your family, you have to make money, and few people will argue with the morality of that.”
One tradition involves a cup of wine that runs over into a saucer and symbolizes their wealth. The cup is filled first to symbolize their own needs, as you keep pouring and it overflows to the saucer, this symbolizes that there is plenty to give to others.
Page 96: “money isn’t good or bad. It’s an inanimate object… but what people do with and for money can be good or evil.” And think back to the cup and saucer example, because it’s important to have a definition for what your amount of ‘enough’ is – how big is your ‘cup’ for your own needs, or does the need for a bigger and bigger cup always push farther and farther into the future, the time at which your cup overflows so you are then sharing with others? The concept of ‘enough’ is talked about in the book Psychology of Money, see my blog of October 31st.
‘Enough’ is a very important piece, as is profiting. It is not bad or evil to profit. Just as money is neither good or bad. Profiting from an opportunity is not necessarily evil. It might be just that, an opportunity.
Some have disagreed that such profit should be made on concert tickets that some would sincerely wish to attend. There has been heated discussion online about it. I suggest consider it not concert tickets but a vehicle. Or a home. Or anything else. There will always be some that think taking a profit is evil. There will be others that praise their lucky stars for having an opportunity to profit. There will be many that think taking a profit is unjust unless they are the ones to profit.
The decision around some concert tickets have yet to be decided. Either way, they will be enjoyed by someone. And perhaps another will have walked away with extra money that may be needed for a specific purpose at a specific time, and it was all a grand design.
Sending Love,
Devon