The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams... At Any Age You Want

Chapter 22. Giving Your Life Away

Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; if we can control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.

—Richard Foster, author

The only things you keep in this world are the things you give away.

—Anonymous

A revitalized offering of human energy could be the greatest windfall of all for our society to come out of the New Retirementality.

Warren Buffett has made the decision to give away almost all of his vast fortune. Sir John Templeton of Templeton Fund fame and a great wealth builder believes that seeking spiritual wealth is the next great challenge for the twenty-first century. He stated:

For more than 45 years, I worked diligently to help people obtain higher profits. This seemed to bring happiness to the investors, but only temporarily. It never gave them—or me—true happiness. Also, my diligence did not seem to help make the world a better place than I found it. During all that time I kept searching for ways my brief life on this planet could produce permanent benefits for everyone. So I sold all my moneymaking activities to a competitor in order to devote my life to a vastly more important purpose. I wanted to give 100 percent of my time and resources toward helping the world build spiritual wealth.

Templeton used his money to start the John Templeton Foundation in 1987. Each year his foundation donates over $20 million to encourage entrepreneurs who are trying various methods ...