An Australian millionaire gave away his 2.7 million EUR fortune because he finally realized he was falling into a consumerism trap, and money didn’t make him happy.
Note to all readers: This is a EUROPEAN, ENGLISH from ENGLAND article written about an AUSTRALIAN man.
Hence all the conversions done in EUR or pounds. I am well aware that Austria and Australia are NOT in the same continent, let alone hemisphere.
I am not mixing up the two countries.
Rabeder claims he is happy living in a small flat and surviving on the equivalent of £800 a month.
‘My then-wife and I were on the plane together coming back from Hawaii in 2004 and I realised that I was dying through consumerism,’ he recalled.
‘It has taken me until now to realise that I don’t need money and possessions.
‘I learned as a child the value of money and how to get by without it.’
Rabeder’s father was a painter, his mother an office worker.
He founded his first company in 1986 and soon became rich, adding; ‘I thought the more money I had the happier I would become, but it was not the case.’
He now lives in a two-room flat in Innsbruck, is divorced and added; ‘The worst that can happen to me is that I have to take a small job to get by.’
Read the story here.
It’s interesting to hear someone who “has it all”, explain that it really isn’t all that and a bag of chips.
It makes me think about my life, and the ever popular question:
“What would you do with a million bucks?”
Me? Nothing.
I may pay off some mortgages on behalf of my family, but I’d probably just bank the rest, and keep working and living exactly the same as right now.
I like my life the way it is, and there’s nothing more I could want from it. I have everything I need and could possibly want.
