Duncan Riach 19 hours ago · Medium.com

“I understand that you really need this laptop,” I said to Bill, “and so I’m willing you help you out. I’ll pay for a new MacBook Pro for you.”

Bill smiled with relief, realizing that this tool that he needed for work, study, and staying connected with friends would be provided to him.

“I’m taking a risk in lending you this money, Bill. You understand that right?” I asked. Bill nodded, and I continued, “I want us to shake on this. You promise to pay this money back to me, right?”

Bill shook my hand and I felt confident that the credit that I was extending to him, this way that I was respecting him, would be returned to me. Do unto others a we would have done unto ourselves, is a motto that I like to think I live by; I am often willing to take the first step.

There was no reason for me to help Bill other than that I cared about him. I wanted to help him to fulfill his potential, to get his needs met. I was willing to address Bill’s short-term cashflow problem by lending him this money until he could pay me back.

Bill and I went to the store and I paid for his laptop using my credit card. I borrowed money to help my friend. Isn’t the world a wonderful place.

A year later, I was still waiting for the money to be returned, for the credit to be reciprocated, for the honor to be reflected. I reached out to Bill and asked if he had a plan to return the money, “Oh, I see,” he told me sternly, “money is more important to you than friendship!”

I was shocked. What did he mean? Was I being an asshole asking for the money to be returned? Had we not shaken on it? Was I putting money above our friendship? I felt guilty, like I had done something wrong, like I should not be so rude as to remind him of his obligation to me, of the commitment he had made with the shake of my hand. How dare I? How dare I remind him of this vulnerability that he had entered into?

So there I was, left holding the bag, a patsy, a chump, the one fool who put a friend first, who gave only because I trusted, who took a risk on a friend. And what I was told is that I should forget all of that in order to keep the friendship. After all, I guess, that was in the past, my sacrifice was willingly given and is no longer felt by him. I may be owed money, but, as far as he was concerned, not by him. The solution to debts, according to him, is, apparently, to simply deny their existence. Problem solved.

And if I should dare to remind Bill of his obligations? He can let me know that I am an unprincipled debt collector, harassing my so-called friends. Who asks a friend for money? Who holds a friend accountable?

In hindsight, I realized that Bill flashed red flags at me before I lent him the money for the laptop. He often complained to me about his landlord. He told me that his landlord, with whom he had entered into a voluntary agreement, was such an “asshole” because he was threatening to evict Bill if Bill persisted in withholding his long-overdue rent. I tried to explain to Bill that the landlord owned an asset for the sole purpose of generating profit, possibly via debt that needed to be serviced, and that Bill had agreed to pay the rent. I tried to explain that the landlord had already kindly provided the accommodation with the expectation of a return of rent. I tried to explain that, by continuing to live there whilst not paying the rent, he was preventing his landlord from entering into an agreement with someone else who would be willing to honor such an agreement.

I already knew that this was someone who didn’t honor agreements, who didn’t respect others, who acted like a selfish asshole, all the while calling others “assholes” for simply requesting that those agreements be fulfilled.

Years later, with the money for the laptop still not returned, I noticed that Bill had posted on Facebook, “I have friend who is a multimillionaire and I wonder how he achieved that.” Strangely, he didn’t ask me, the multimillionaire.

I would have willingly told him the secret to wealth: respect.

First, pay your debts. First, honor your obligations. First, value wealth, even if it’s not your own. But Bill never asked me.

When I was about eight years old, my step-father entered my room late at night and woke me, asking to borrow money. I had only forty pounds, money carefully saved over time from delivering newspapers. I willingly lent to him everything I had, feeling grateful to be able to help someone in need.

The next morning, I asked him when I could have my forty pounds back. “What forty pounds?” he asked, seemingly completely indifferent to my plight. Did he not remember? Had he been drunk? Was he pretending? I never received that money back from him. I never received an explanation. I, alone, carried the loss, the confusion, and the pain.

“I’m proud of you” he told me much later, after he learned of one of my achievements.

“It had nothing to do with you.” I told him.

He died at some point, having never acknowledged what I had done for him.

Later, in my early teens, I often worked in a restaurant until 2 am, washing dishes. That meant that I was very tired during the daytime at school. I mostly spent the money I earned on clothes.

Sometimes, my older brother and his friends would apparently steal those clothes. I remember seeing a friend of his wearing an identical t-shirt to one of mine that had gone missing. I have a vague memory of asking for my clothes back, but I generally didn’t receive them. My clothes were taken without my consent and were never returned.

I assume that my older brother and his friends have now learned to respect wealth.

Writing all of this has increased my awareness of growing up in an environment where my boundaries were often violated. I trusted others when that trust was not warranted, when it had not been earned. I then became an adult and continued to make the same, naive mistakes, extending credit to those who had not shown themselves to be worthy of credit.

I hope that I am gradually learning to respect myself enough to not tolerate disrespectful behavior from others. I hope that I am gradually learning to recognize and heed warning signs and red flags, and to incrementally develop trust in reciprocating relationships. I hope that I am learning that I don’t have to repeat those early violations in my life. Perhaps I no longer have to be a victim.

When we demonstrate that we have little integrity and when we treat wealth with contempt, it should be no surprise when wealth does not choose to come and live with us.

So, how do we become wealthy?

The first step in welcoming wealth into our lives is to treat wealth with respect. We have to woo wealth. We have to live with the upmost integrity and kindness. We want wealth to see us and to feel drawn to us, to seek us, to desire to fill our homes, and to feel safe with us.

We can send little love notes to wealth from wherever we find ourselves: we can pay our debts, we can keep our promises, and we can take wealth seriously. What little wealth we do have we can care for, we can store, we can organize, we can allocate, we can be generous with, and we can spend wisely. We can bring our loving, conscious attention to wealth. We can protect the wealth not only of ourselves, but of others.

Wealth is not attracted to, nor satisfied by, greedy, selfish, and self-centered people. Wealth enjoys those who can empathize with the perspectives of others, who will take care of wealth no matter where it lives. Wealth wants to know that you will respect it no matter who you see it with.

In short: to become (and stay) wealthy, first learn to respect wealth.