What do you want? tough question isn’t it?

What does everyone want is slightly easier to deal with because you have the liberty to generalize it. You can take it as a group of people, ethnicity or maybe as per nationalities. Kashmiris want freedom. South Sudan needs peace. Then there is the complex lense of religion.

But if you still want to super generalize it, think it in terms of the rich, middle class and the poor. Your thoughts, actions, aspirations, ideologies and a great deal of happiness depend on the quantum wealth you hold. Let us have a closer look at the three classes: rich, middle class and the poor.

What does the poor want?

Poor “needs” good food, sanitation, access to clean water and healthcare. You see, these are basic needs. The poor are so busy chasing these needs that they don’t have any time to think about what they really “want”. If you ask the poor, do you want 1 dollar today or 2 dollars tomorrow, the poor will take that one dollar and spend it. Every day is a unit for the poor. Their day resets when they sleep. Then the next day starts with new challenges.

The poor is convinced that there is nothing that is going to take them outside their misery unless they work hard for it. Education is a far cry because all the promises of education will be delivered tomorrow. So what does the poor want? they want to live in the present. There is no element of planning. They take whatever it takes to live in the present: lie, cheat, steal, do odd jobs and consume everything as soon as they can. Instant gratification is what all they care for. In the pursuit of instant gratification, the poor commit mistakes, there are some innocent mistakes and then there are some grave mistakes that destroy lives.

The Middle Class.

It is easy to understand what the middle class needs. Being the largest consumer class, they need everything. The Middle class wants health insurance, home loans, education loan. They want a cheap family car that has a good resale value. They want discounts so that they can save more. They want things that last long. They want to save tax and invest in government bonds that will mature after 15 years. There is no concept of today for the Middle Class. The middle class believes in the power of education. They think linear. They plan meticulously and have plan B in place if the A fails.

So what does the middle class really want?

They want to live better in the future. They don’t live in the present.

If you ask a middleclass individual whether he wants a dollar today or 2 dollars tomorrow, he will say, “why don’t you invest that dollar and give me 10 dollars in 5 years.”

The middle-class wants to live less today so that they live more tomorrow.

The Rich

What does the rich want?

I seriously have no clue. There are very few rich people, I know personally. They are rare. The common knowledge we have about rich people is basically a set of assumptions. There is a lot of loss in translation when it comes to the knowledge about the rich that trickles down to us. Writers and movie makers take all the liberty to paint the life of the rich on a big canvas.

Here is what we can deduce from popular media: They travel extensively. They buy expensive stuff at their whim. They do affairs, cheat, have powerful and corrupt allies. Money is what they chase and their money makes more money. They live lightyears away from all the insecurity that absence of money brings.

All that might be true or inflated truth.

But here are my assumptions: In contrast to the poor and the middle class, the rich have a very different mindset. They have an abundance mindset. They don’t think linear. If you give a rich man 1$, he would think of making it into 100$ himself. They have control on their fate. They have an exponential mindset.

The maximize their potential to enjoy every moment of their lives. And they live to their fullest tomorrow. They want to create memories, experience things to create lasting memories.

They take all the calculated risks because they have a secure today and secure tomorrow. It is safe to assume that the rich want to preserve their present as well as build a bigger and safer tomorrow. They want more. They want all the luxuries of life today and they are ready to pay a premium for that. That makes them somewhat like what the poor wants ie instant gratification but at a premium and much grander scale.

So what does the rich want? they want to live wild a feel alive minus the misery that comes with it 🙂