Don't you like money?

Today we received a review from a very lovely customer:

Shipping was expensive and long, but it was so worth it! Puro (from hit game "Changed") plush is so soft and well-made! Puro plush unfortunately is not capable of transfuring living beings (as can be seen in hit game "Changed"). Also, how come there is a tiger shark plush but no squid dog plush? Do you not like money?

It was a very interesting review. Don't you like money? No, we like it very much. You could say we are simply obsessed with money. Like all people who are not rich, we long to be rich. And what does it mean to be rich? You have the freedom of choice.

Money and freedom

There is a very funny quote about money from the English writer Oscar Wilde: When I was young, I thought money was the most important thing in the world, but now that I am old, I realize that it is. :)

In the pyramid of wealth, it is no longer the 80/20 principle, but the 2% of people who occupy 80% of the world's wealth. For those who have a lot of money, the rest of the world is just the difference between poor and very poor.

There is an old Chinese satirical story. It says that a king came out of his palace one day and went among the citizens. He saw a man on the roadside who was very hungry and weak. The king asked the man, "What is wrong with you?" The citizen said that he was very hungry and he could not afford to eat. The king then asked: "If you can't afford to eat, why don't you eat meat?"

It's funny, but the king didn't know that meat is far more expensive than rice. When you have money, you can choose to eat rice or meat, or both. When you don't have money, you don't have any choice: you can eat whatever is cheap.

But in any case, we as a human race are much better off than we were 300 years ago. Whereas for the past 100,000 years we were often at risk of starvation, today at least the vast majority of the world's population has enough to eat.

Money and Wealth

Most people want more money, but at the same time, they have a hard time distinguishing between money and wealth. Money is the cash you have, while wealth tends to be made up more of assets, and assets generate cash. So, in all seriousness, we should be chasing wealth rather than money.

What are assets? A house, stocks, and bonds are assets, but the knowledge and talents you have are also assets. When we create value for other people with our knowledge and talents, we can acquire money. This is the reason why we work hard. :)

We strive to provide first-class products and services to our customers and to live our vision - to bring happiness to everyone. We believe that our efforts create value for our customers and that we will eventually become rich.

By the way, we have forwarded this customer's message to Changed's team. We hope they will design and produce the squid dog plush soon, and like you, we're looking forward to getting this new plush toy out on the market as soon as possible. What are you looking forward to? Feel free to leave us a comment.

Finally, if you are interested in the topic of money and wealth, we recommend reading the famous article How to Get Rich (without getting lucky) by Naval Ravikant, a Silicon Valley investor. The article consists of a series of posts on Twitter by Naval Ravikant about wealth.

We want everyone at 42Shops to be happy and wealthy. :)