Saturday Nights Are For Fightin: Matt Dawson’s “Don’t Eat The Rich, Be The Rich!”

by Matt Dawson

The mantra I hear the most out of Occupy Wall Street is the ridiculous saying “Eat the Rich.” Well guess what there is no such thing as an endless meal. It ends eventually. Now what? You’re hungry again. Hey here’s a radical idea for all the butter brained nitwits in the protests, instead of “Eat the Rich” why not “Be the Rich”. Shocking I know. The United States of America is still a place where anyone can be successful. America is a place where a pauper can be a prince, not because of inheritance but just out of sheer will power and determination. It’s a place where an innovation is heralded and ideas cherished. Not because some bureaucrat in Washington says “Yes I bestow upon you the right to have this idea and you may build upon it.” No way! We are free men and we can take whatever idea we have and run with it. There are only two results in America: Success or Failure. The market decides what the result will be but only you can decide how long you will stay in each of the two inevitable results.

Be the Rich! The successful don’t give up and they don’t blame others, they just pick up their big pile of fail and move on to the next opportunity. People like Rowland Macy sucked hard at opening businesses. He was so bad at it that he failed 7 times in a row with Zero success. If he were alive today most of these “Occupiers” would say, “Dude the reason you suck is because of ‘The Man’. You should come sit in Zucotti park with us and eat hash brownies.”

Rowland said No Way and on his eighth try on October 28th, 1858, he opened a store called “Macy’s” and now it is one of the largest department store companies in the world. The “Occupiers” will naturally shout, “But that was back a really long time ago when there were dinosaurs and David Hasselhoff and stuff.” You don’t think that it still doesn’t happen today? Mark Zuckerburg the founder of Facebook? The dude is worth almost $18 billion! He got that just in the last 8 years. Was that handed to him? No! He worked his ass off for it. He found a need in the market and filled it with a highly successful product. Viola! Result: success.

“But Matt that might be really hard and I might be really poor for a long time and I won’t have money and stuff and a place to live.” You’re living under tarps in a cement park in downtown New York, I think you already have a head start on the poor part and a hell of a lot of time to kill. Besides, you can’t be successful without risk. A life without risk is no life at all. It is plain, vanilla, bland, and boring. I’ll give you a free idea. Go down to your local Sam’s club or Costco and buy up a bunch of small bottles of mouth wash. Sell them for a 50% mark up to your fellow occupiers and you both win! You get the profit and the feeling of success that comes with being an American and your buddies won’t have the taste of Rat feces in their teeth any longer. Win Win!

“So are you saying that everyone that wants to succeed will automatically be the richest person in the world and do stuff and like ride jets and stuff.” No. Success and Wealth is measured by the individual. Just because people are in the “Middle Class” doesn’t mean they hate it there. Being Middle class is not a failure. It is a destination and a journey. If you want to stay in the Middle Class, do it. If you want to make more money, then do it. This is America you have the option. Being the wealthiest of wealthy has responsibilities that Middle America doesn’t have. Would you want to have the fate of 13,000 people in the palm of your hand? Not me! But the Wealthy do. They are not going to just say “Screw it I’m going to screw all these workers and damn it all to hell!” They won’t be rich for long. The Market sees all and knows all. The Market is the Karma of Capitalism and it will balance out.

So “Occupiers” I give you this advice again; Don’t Eat the Rich, Be the Rich. Don’t rely on someone to give you something, go earn it. Don’t wait around for a job to open up in your niche field, Create one! Don’t complain that you feel put upon by ‘The Man’, be your own man so you don’t ever have to answer to the mythical “Man” again. You obviously have passion, desire, and stubbornness. Take that and use it to Be the Rich.

You can follow Matt Dawson on Twitter @SaintRPh