4 Ways to Avoid Loneliness After Microsoft Personally Hands You $1.3 Billion
Markus Persson is a person who built or was president of a thing called Minecraft. Until reading articles about Mr. Persson, I had never heard about Minecraft but it is apparently an incredibly popular building video game where you can create different kinds of things out of 3D cubes. Think of Legos but on the computer. I must admit it looks quite fun!
Well, Minecraft was so popular, that Microsoft decided to buy the company for $2.5 billion which gave Mr. Persson a personal net-worth of $1.3 billion. Wow! Imagine that, one day you make something on the computer and then the next day, you’re a newly-minted billionaire and drowning in accolades. That would be anyone’s reasonable reaction to it, but as it turns out, Mr. Persson’s new lifestyle, the embodiment of generations of hardworking American’s dreams, is just kind of bumming him out:
Hanging out in ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I’ve never felt more isolated.
— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015
So before I get my son to teach me how to make something on the computer, I wanted to make a guide to not letting a billion dollars make you sad, that is, of course, if the billion dollars doesn’t do the trick by itself:
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Buy Happiness
By far, the biggest trick that anyone who is not an economist can pull, is to convince people that money can’t buy happiness. This is simply absurd. Of course it can. Think about everything in your life that keeps you from being happy and let me know if any of the items on that list can’t be solved with throwing money at it. Miserable at your job? If you had enough money, you wouldn’t need that job. Get depressed? Buy medication with money. Locked in a loveless marriage? Money can buy a brand new house for a brand new you. Or money can buy a lavish vacation that you can enjoy with your family. Or further yet, money can buy lawyers and make divorce proceedings go smoothly. Not attractive enough? Money turns surgery into “YES SIR-gery!” Money is the valuation of value, itself.
Fix a Global Problem
One of the hobbies of billionaires is to identify a problem and then make solving it look easy. The more impossible the problem, the better. Take Bill Gates, for instance, the founder of Microsoft, who was the purchaser of Minecraft. He decided that he was going to spend his remaining days getting ridding the world of something that annoyed him. Mosquitos. Here in Texas, when it gets to be too humid, those little vampires are everywhere and now Bill Gates is on my side. If I had that kind of buying power, I would make it buy out whatever organization gives out parking tickets and then dissolve the group. A world without parking tickets or mosquitos would be a utopian-like future.
Set Better Goals
If you’re bored with traveling to Ibiza, Spain, maybe you should have better goals. While I do think it’s great that Mr. Persson made so much money, he really needs to have better goals if he thinks that selling a video game company means that he has nothing left to work towards. You know what’s better than $1.3 billion? More billions. You think Warren Buffet got to #1.3 billion and said to himself “that’s good enough, I’m stopping here.” NO! The sky is the limit, my friend. Find ways to double your worth. You’re obviously a smart man, so get creative! And when you successfully achieve that, double it again. Keep doing this until you’re no longer bored with hanging out with celebrities all day.
Live Forever Through Legacy
Who is John D. Rockefeller? Who is Andrew Carnegie? And why are their names on so many buildings? Death comes to us all, but one of the ways humanity has found ways to make themselves immortal is through expanding their legacies. Giving money to museums and parks is one way. But don’t mistake my advice for charity, because you get the great thing in return. The two men I called out was an oil man and a steel man, respectively. But those things don’t occur to many people as much anymore once these men became symbols, transcending the limits of man. In 100 years, do you think anyone will still be playing Minecraft? Or will they know more about the legend of Markus Persson, himself. Begin to think and expect greater of yourself and outlive both your accomplishments and your own mortality.
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Mr. Persson, you seem like a very smart, talented young man with your whole life ahead of you. Keep your chin up, but also remember, you have a lot of work to do!
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