I meet a surprising number of people who foster resentment toward the rich. We all know money can’t buy happiness, but it sure can play with our emotions. Both for those who have and those who have not. Which category are we in? That largely depends on us. Other people’s lives can seem so easy in comparison to our own, particularly when we are deep in the trenches struggling to get by. Resentment fosters toward those who have money not because of their money, but because it seems to come so freely and easily.

Bitterness towards someone else because they seem to have the easy life or made easy money in many ways is our own barrier. A barrier either because we believe life should be easy, or because we believe easy money exists independent of hard work. The fact is easy money does exist, but it cannot be found. Easy Money is simply hard work distributed as an annuity.

What does this mean? An annuity is an investment vehicle. How it works is you deposit money into the annuity to start. The annuity grows at a compounding rate until you are ready to start withdrawing the money. The money is withdrawn at a defined rate, but you get a lot more back than you put in because of the compounding interest. Like a monetary annuity, when you see someone who appears to have lots of money and an easy life, think about what it took to get to that point. For a person to be retired at 40 years means they spent at least 20 years working very hard. The same principle applies to the person who inherits their money. Hard work was put in long ago, just in this case the annuity grew so well that the life of the annuity extends beyond one person's life.

People are rich because they or someone in their family realized an opportunity, made the necessary commitments to see it through, and eventually came out on top. Easy money is the reward for successfully going through this process. To resent the rewards of the process, means psychologically, we challenge the concept that opportunity + hard work = monetary rewards. To challenge this concept undermines the entrepreneurial spirit and creates an insurmountable mental barrier to success.

We all go through times in our lives in which we feel like no matter how hard we try we get no where. This can lead us to feel resentment for those who seem to have it easy, but these people are inspiration and proof that if we remain disciplined and put in the work, we will be rewarded.