The Only Free Cheese is in the Mousetrap.

The Only Free Cheese is in the Mousetrap.

That statement sounds like I'm being flippant, but it actually is a very concise, and very profound summary of how the laws of prosperity operate.

You don't get rich winning the lottery, getting an inheritance, or discovering oil in your backyard. Those things may happen to poor people and create some temporary wealth. But the wealth won't stay arround, or you won't achieve true prosperity for free. There is always a price to pay: the fair exchange of values.

A big part of the price you pay to become prosperous is becoming the kind of person that handles prosperity responsibly. Studies have shown again and again that most poor people who win large windfalls in the lottery are broke and miserable ten years later. And we are talking about people who have won ten, twenty, or even forty million dollars! They got the cash, but they didn't have the prosperity conciousness. So the money never stayed, and the other elements of prosperity never showed up.

Nothing comes for free. If you let the clerk give you the extra $5 by mistake, you find a way to wire your house for cable without paying for it, or you help yourself to an extra newspaper when no one is looking - you are incurring a definite karma debt. And those debts always come due. Prosperous people never look for anything for free. They are always happy to exchange value for everything.

- Randy Gage


-- Posted from my iPhone