Money and Family

My friend Phil made me think of this. I had always felt that my family had all the money needed to live "the good life," and I harbored resentments that certain things that I got into my head were necessary for my own happiness were denied to me, ostensibly through lack of money.

Therefore, it was one of the biggest shocks of my life to learn, on the death of my father (at age 50), that this titan of Wall Street legal practice wasn't earning the princely sums that I had imagined. Indeed, his partner's share was quite modest, at least to my way of thinking.

That had a profound effect on me, but it was not to launch me on a chase of the almighty dollar. I guess I saw that, although he and his family never lacked for material well-being, at the end he found fulfillment in his life through service. And this was interesting because he was not a religious man, nor even very spiritual, to the extent that I understood that concept at the time.

While I followed a very different path from my father, I hope I have absorbed a little of the spirit of service that he has come to embody for me.