Guest blogger Mike on who is actually wealthy (New York Times opinion)

Commenting on https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/stop-pretending-youre-not-rich.html?

"I love being controversial when it leads to healthy dialogue, so here's an opinion to really stir the pot.

The overwhelming majority of wealthy and successful people obtained their assets through innovation, hard work, and strategic decisions, despite the claims to the contrary. Yes, there are a very small number of people who became powerful through unscrupulous methods, but this is not the majority that's often illustrated in an effort to mobilize mobs of people who think that something someone else has should be theirs, because after all, it's much easier to take something from someone else than to work for it yourself.

It is well known that once wealth is acquired, the excess obviously transcends future generations, so looking at an heir of their predecessor's wealth and begrudging them of what they have is nonsense because someone, at some point, worked for what they have.

The problem now is that there's this implied guilt and shaming with being successful, nefariously manufactured with its roots firmly originating in envy, and it's all nonsense. Envy is an emotion that destroys the holder, not the target. Getting over the "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" mentality is the first step towards a person's own success.

Intelligent people understand that by surrounding yourself with people more successful than yourself, it's a motivational catalyst to do more, and to do better. People who sit and stew in their own juices of jealousy condemn themselves to remain in place, rather than improve their situation, because they've diverted all of their energy into negative emotions and actions that intend to tear others down, rather than elevate their own situation.

Believing that equipoise is achieved by bringing those at the top into the gutter is equal distribution of misery, not success. I know a lot of people across the entire spectrum of income, intelligence, ambition, and overall success. I can say with confidence, that people create their own ceilings through the way they think, behave, and ultimately respond to situations.

Personal responsibility is the genesis of success and a happy life. As long as people continue to believe they can make poor life decisions and it's the responsibility of society to clean up the mess, we'll continue circling the drain as we have since this philosophy gained traction the late 1960's."