Menial or Meaningful

I was reading Thomas Sowell’s Reader on the plane home Sunday as I was returning from Charlotte after sharing the Infinite Banking Concept with a group of doctors at Dr. Tedd Korens’ seminar. What Dr. Sowell wrote got me to thinking, “That in my 30 years of living in California I have never seen a Mexican-American begging on the streets, though beggars and hustlers have become a common sight and a common nuisance.”

From my own experience, I’ve noticed, that the work which immigrants gravitate towards first when they come to this country is often work which is considered “demeaning” by most Americans. This was true back in the 1970’s, when I was working in agriculture fields picking cherries and berries in order to earn money for my school clothes, and it is true today too because when I travel I’ve observed that 99% of the time my cab driver and domestic service providers at the hotel are immigrants. And more times than not, as immigrants, they are working another “menial” job as well.

These “menial” jobs, which immigrants are so willing to work, are menial only because Americans have come to think of them as such and not because they truly are menial in and of themselves. Tragically the same folks who would feel demeaned if they ever had to perform one of these so called menial jobs wouldn’t hesitate a moment to demand their welfare and/or unemployment payments which are blatantly demeaning. This is simply because they have been programmed to believe that these programs are their “right.”

Benjamin Franklin was once asked by some Europeans about coming to America and he told them that if they came to America they would have to work because everybody in America worked. Pathetically, that is no longer the case in America. And because of that America is no longer the country of opportunity that it once was. The right to meaningful work was once measured as a unique quality making America great. And it wasn’t just the right to work but the fact that you had to work because government was not there to take care of those who wouldn’t work. Therefore, everybody had meaningful work to perform in America.

As I coach people around the country I find it tragic that far too many today are looking for “a menial hand out” instead of “a meaningful work.” In other words they would rather obtain a quick buck from gaming or a fast dollar from a stock market return instead of earning an honest profit. Few are willing to discipline themselves in order to obtain a secure and lasting wealth which can only be created by meaningful work.

Now, if you’ll couple the Infinite Banking Concept with a meaningful work ethic, nothing in the world can create and protect a storehouse of wealth better. That is why Nelson Nash writes in his book, Becoming Your Own Banker that, “Everybody needs to have two jobs. The one you work at to make your living and the banking business.”

If everyone behaved like many immigrants do, performing meaningful work by occupying more than one “menial” job, everybody in America would be better off. Just remember, if you’ll make that second “menial” job a meaningful job of becoming your own banker, then you won’t have to work any harder than you do right now to create more wealth.

America is still a land of great opportunity. And the further you exercise your opportunity by performing meaningful work, the more that American will continue to remain a land of opportunity for all. But when meaningful work is vilified into becoming menial, opportunity is aborted and the “right” of entitlement will fill the void. This is historical fact.

Finally, when everybody is entitled to what you have worked for, you’ll be a slave unable to enjoy the fruits of your own labor. Then everything you do will be menial because your meaningful labor is no longer meaningful to you.

By learning now the meaningful labor of becoming your own banker you can overcome a menial future which many hard working Americans have been forced to accept...social security. Don’t wait until it becomes meaningless for you to begin.

By Tomas McFie