Some people have had very difficult pasts. Though they had it rough and that is not wished upon anyone, some of those people had the advantage of growing up quicker. Others did not do so well ...they became angry and bitter.

Our hearts and prayers go out to those people.  The ones we often don't think of praying for ...are those whom we feel are already blessed, and comparatively they are the majority.

I guess it depends on who you are comparing yourself with. Most people don't look to the people that have it worse off than they do ...they look to those they feel are better off.

It's good to work to better yourself ...but, after a while that can be in question.  If you live in a poorer neighborhood, you may work to get something a little better.  But, perhaps you step up to a neighborhood where you are then exposed to an even higher lifestyle.  That tendency can go in many directions.

So, you can aspire to do better, and move up ...and that would be setting your sights in that direction.  It's a matter of perspective ...our strivings and our gratitude.  

Yes, it's good to look up ...but, that good should include looking up to God.  We don't look down on people, but we look to people who are down.

It can be the lifestyles of the rich and famous ...or the impoverished of countries like Haiti.

Another way to look at it ...is not the level of prosperity, it is how we reminisce in looking at our past.

Most of the time childhood is a very unique time ...where play and carefree living is a big part of our memory.  Life wasn't as complex, others usually provided for us ...instead of us providing for others.  For the most part, life was rather innocent.

Who wouldn't want to return to some aspect of that?

Often secure and surrounded by those who love us ...this is the childhood story for many of us.  But, as adults we are not to return to our childish ways ...but to recreate the healthy moments for our children.

I look at our nation the same way.  I'd like to retain what is healthy ...and as often parents do, our forefathers set down how they thought we should live as a nation whether they were showing a stellar example or not by looking at their own personal lives.  The things that were bad, were not because bad policy existed ...it's because they had bad practices that they'd not yet dealt with.

I don't want to return to the time of slavery, or even to when women couldn't vote ...and as I enjoy watching the movies, I see much character that emerged from the frontier days; but I would not want to live through the struggles that they did.  Yet still, I see how it made our nation great.

Yet, let us not forget that there are those who still do struggle ...and those who don't just fight their own battles or their own private torment.  Many brave and courageous soldiers still fight wars to defend the freedoms that all of us benefit from while living in this nation.

The problem with freedoms, often coinciding with increased free time ...is that we become complacent, forgetting how fragile those freedoms really are.  We are not only uninvolved, but uninformed.  We take things for granted, and no longer want to be bothered.  And we tend to repeat our mistakes unnecessarily.

Sometimes we forget what we've learned ...and I guess, I have to admit that we sometimes do not learn it.  Why else would we repeat it?

Partly, I believe that we value the innocence so much ...that we want to go back to that.  But, when we made many of our mistakes by those innocent acts ...it's not that we were irresponsible.  We were in the painful process of maturing.

But,we should have learned something, and the wisdom that comes with that should be invaluable.  It is guaranteed that times will always change ...though not always with a sound frame of mind.  There are good changes, and there are bad changes.  And we often fail to distinguish the two. The Bible says that people often become wise in their own conceits ...and that stands true today as it did then.

We would admit that we know better ...but we seem drawn back to the more innocent times of our lives, when sadly we were not so wise.

But, we somehow ignore that ...and put it in the back of our mind.  We let temptation get the best of us, and we slip up, doing things we would not have done a few years back.  We seem to lose our focus.

This happens to different degrees with different people.

Look at Solomon ...it is said that no mere man could match his wisdom, yet he failed while everyone else seemed to be admiring his successes.


Solomon had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines.  

Near the end of Solomon's life, we find wise counsel, as he writes Ecclesiastes: “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man”.

• A companion of William the Conqueror during the Norman invasion of Britain, Alan Rufus, who is also known as Alain le Roux or Alan the Red, received some 250,000 acres in land grants as a reward for his allegiance, stretching throughout Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and London. His investments in steel only furthered to expand his fortunes, making Alan Rufus the wealthiest Briton in all the history of Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland. His fortune was estimated to be equivalent to roughly US$162.73 billion.

• Cornelius Vanderbilt was a U.S. entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads and was the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family.  With a real value estimated somewhere between US$143 billion and US$178.4 billion adjusted for the late 2000s, Vanderbilt is perhaps the second wealthiest American in the history of the country.

• Henry Ford – US$ 195 billion

• The Fugger family was a highly influential clan of German merchant princes. The family’s initial wealth can be traced to Hans Fugger, an enterprising weaver who moved to Augsburg in 1367. His descendants built up the family fortune through trade and banking. None was more prominent than Jacob Fugger II, who was also known as Jacob the Rich. Through clever exploitation of a virtual monopoly in the mining and trading of silver, copper, and mercury, Jacob the Rich built an extensive network of real estate, merchant fleets and palaces throughout Europe. Jacob bought and sold politicians of the time, established sovereign rights over the family lands, and even coined his own currency. Thanks in large part to Jacob, the Fuggers became the richest family in Europe.

• Asaf Jah VII (whose given name was Osman Ali Khan Bahadur) was the last Nizam or ruler of the Princely State of Hyderabad and Berar, before it was invaded and annexed by India in 1948. By most accounts, “His Exalted Highness” the Nizam of Hyderabad was a benevolent ruler who promoted education, science and development. He spent about one-tenth of his Principality’s budget on education, and even made primary education compulsory and free for the poor. In his 37-year rule, Hyderabad witnessed the introduction of electricity, railways, roads, and other development projects. In 1937, Asaf Jah VII was on the cover of Time Magazine, labeled as the richest man in the world, at US$225.1 billion.

• Nicholas II (born Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov) was the last Tsar of Russia. He ruled from 1894 until he was forced to abdicate in the Russian Revolution of 1917 by the Bolsheviks. His reign was marked with antisemitic pogroms, a crushing defeat by Japan in the Russo-Japanese War, revolutions, internal unrests their bloody suppressions, undue influence by the mystic Rasputin and World War I. A year after he was deposed, Nicholas and his entire family were executed by Lenin’s order. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov had a net worth of US $290.7 billion at the time of his death in 1918. As Tasr of the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century, he also is credited as being the wealthiest monarch and wealthiest head of state.

• Founder of the Carnegie Steel Company, which was the most extensive integrated iron and steel operations in the United States, Andrew Carnegie merged his company into U.S. Steel and sold his share for US$492 million in 1901. Capitalized at US$1.4 billion at the time, U.S. Steel was the first billion dollar company in the world. In his final years, Carnegie’s net worth was US$475 million, but by the time of his death in 1919 he had donated most of his wealth to charities and other philanthropic endeavors and had only US$30 million left to his personal fortune. Carnegie’s hundreds of millions accounted for about 0.60% of the U.S. economy and has a real value estimated at US$297.8 billion adjusted for the late 2000s.

• In 1916 John D. Rockefeller measured his personal fortune at US$1 billion, which was a “kingly” amount in the day. Rockefeller amassed his fortune from the Standard Oil company, of which he was a founder, chairman and major shareholder. By the time of his death in 1937, his net worth had grown to US$1.4 billion. Adjustments place his net worth in the range of US$392 billion to US$663.4 billion in adjusted dollars for the late 2000s.  When considering the real value of his wealth, Rockefeller is widely held to be the wealthiest American in the history of the United States.

• The tenth Mansa, (which means King of Kings) Mansa Musa I leads the pack of the richest people who have ever lived. This Malian Empire ruler made his fortune by producing salt and gold, which accounts for over 50% of the world’s supply. Taking into consideration the inflation rate, Mansa Musa I would be worth around $400 billion.

• Mayer Amschel Rothschild (23 February 1744 – 19 September 1812) was the founder of the Rothschild family international banking dynasty. The Rothschild family is rumoured to be the richest on earth, though their actual worth and full holdings are not known. it is said that they were estimated to be worth $6 billion in 1850, which is the equivalent of close to US$ 100 trillion in 2006 dollars.  But back in the 18th and 19th centuries, no one played the superior information game better than the Rothschilds. The Rothschilds were known for maintaining an extensive (and secretive) information network, connected by financial hubs in five European cities: London, Paris, Vienna, Naples, and Frankfurt. Nathan Rothschild, a bullion dealer on the London Stock Exchange, made legendary use of this information network during the Napoleonic wars, and in so doing laid the foundations of the Rothschild fortune, which is unknown and estimated between US$ 100-400 trillion.

• Though it is not known what the worth of King Solomon and his holdings amounted to in dollars, he is reputed as the wealthiest figure in history. The Bible contends that King Solomon held a fortune that dwarfed any and every person that lived before him. And this fortune did not diminish – each year Solomon received 25 tons of gold, as well as income derived from business, trade and annual tribute paid to him by all of the kings and governors of Arabia. King Solomon’s throne was coated in pure gold and inlaid with ivory. It had 6 stairs, 12 lion statues (1 on either side of each step) and a solid gold foot stool. Two larger gold lion statues stood on either side of the throne.  All of the goblets and household articles in Solomon’s palace were pure gold. King Solomon was reportedly so rich, that during the years of his reign over Jerusalem, his immense wealth caused silver to be considered of little value and as common as rocks. As such, nothing in Solomon’s palace was made of silver.

Now, back to the 700 wives and 300 concubines ...not to mention the other princesses.  I can't imagine having more than one wife ...I don't think it's God's way, nor is anything but foreign to me.  But, reportedly they were foreign to Solomon ...and I can't imagine how he kept them happy and satisfied.  If he was going to spend one night with each wife, it would be nearly two years before it was their turn again ...unless he totally ignored the old ones, and only focused on the new wives.

Yet, Solomon knew something about how wise it was to ignore women ...it simply does not work.  What would he do?  Well, how about lavishing them with things? 

He knew that if he lavished them with things, they would be content ...but only for a while, until they needed to be lavished upon again.  With nearly unlimited wealth, he alone could do this.  What they really required was perhaps his undivided attention ...but try dividing that by nearly a thousand.

Undivided attention ...we can come close to doing that with one wife.

But, what if we give both lavishing and undivided attention?  Nothing wrong with that, it seems.  It seems like the right thing to do ...yet, we all can't do it.

What we all can do, is give our loving attention ...yet, sadly the worldly standard is comparison, and validating our place in this world by accumulating things.  Perhaps we should not aspire to begin where Solomon began, but to end where he ended.  

As he said, “Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man”.