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Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable
>Crossposted from Daily Telegraph and Daily Good
Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.
http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4015
Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable
Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.
By Henry Samuel in Paris
Published: 8:16PM GMT 08 Feb 2010
Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away his fortune 
He is in the process of selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million. He will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck. Mr Rabeder, 47, a businessman from Telfs is in the process of selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million.
Also for sale is his beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with its
17 hectares overlooking the arrière-pays, on the market for £613,000. Already gone is his collection of six gliders valued at £350,000, and a luxury Audi A8, worth around £44,000. Mr Rabeder has also sold the interior furnishings and accessories business – from vases to artificial flowers – that made his fortune. "My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," he told Daily Telegraph. "Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come." Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck.His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.
"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," he said. "I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and applied this for many years," said Mr Rabeder. But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling. "More and more I heard the words: 'Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life'," he said. "I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need. I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing." However, for many years he said he was simply not "brave" enough to give up all the trappings of his comfortable existence.
The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to the islands of Hawaii. "It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is," he said. "In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real."
He had similar feelings of guilt while on gliding trips in South America and Africa. "I increasingly got the sensation that there is a connection between our wealth and their poverty," he said. Suddenly, he realised that "if I don't do it now I won't do it for the rest of my life".
Mr Rabeder decided to raffle his Alpine home, selling 21,999 lottery tickets priced at just £87 each. The Provence house in the village of Cruis is on sale at the local estate agent. All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans to Latin America and builds development aid strategies to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.
Since selling his belongings, Mr Rabeder said he felt "free, the opposite of heavy".But he said he did not judge those who chose to keep their wealth. " I do not have the right to give any other person advice. I was just
listening to the voice of my heart and soul."
Also for sale is his beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with its
17 hectares overlooking the arrière-pays, on the market for £613,000. Already gone is his collection of six gliders valued at £350,000, and a luxury Audi A8, worth around £44,000. Mr Rabeder has also sold the interior furnishings and accessories business – from vases to artificial flowers – that made his fortune. "My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," he told Daily Telegraph. "Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come." Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck.His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.
"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," he said. "I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and applied this for many years," said Mr Rabeder. But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling. "More and more I heard the words: 'Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life'," he said. "I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need. I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing." However, for many years he said he was simply not "brave" enough to give up all the trappings of his comfortable existence.
The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to the islands of Hawaii. "It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is," he said. "In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real."
He had similar feelings of guilt while on gliding trips in South America and Africa. "I increasingly got the sensation that there is a connection between our wealth and their poverty," he said. Suddenly, he realised that "if I don't do it now I won't do it for the rest of my life".
Mr Rabeder decided to raffle his Alpine home, selling 21,999 lottery tickets priced at just £87 each. The Provence house in the village of Cruis is on sale at the local estate agent. All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans to Latin America and builds development aid strategies to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.
Since selling his belongings, Mr Rabeder said he felt "free, the opposite of heavy".But he said he did not judge those who chose to keep their wealth. " I do not have the right to give any other person advice. I was just
listening to the voice of my heart and soul."
Tags: article, fortune, microcredit, sharing, wealth
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Peace F. Asienzo Duke on -
WHY?
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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Gerhold Fautsch on
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I once read a quote by Austrian artist Egon Schiele (the one who painted the distorted portraits of women in the interwar period). He said (roughly) "Most rich people are little more than the custodians of their possessions." I think that's probably how this gentlemen must have felt. There's also a new book out about an Atlanta family who did something similar, called "The Power of Half". They sold their huge house, moved to a smaller one and used $500K of the proceeds to help people in Liberia, I believe. I applaud the compassion and generosity of these people, but I don't know that at this point I am capable of doing likewise. Also, I hope that their money is put to a use that enables sustainable development rather than upheaval, corruption and discord as large gifts sometimes are.
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Permalink Reply by aura Hammer on
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i'm just wondering about the wife...
i've always liked the sunyassi idea, moving on to your next stage and making sure you left the family well taken care of. so i hope he did this act mindfully in every aspect.
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Permalink Reply by Andria Durney on -
This is so fantastic!!! I am so happy for him! How brave to listen to his heart and soul and do what really matters to him. I hope that this example inspires other people. It is good also that the charities are microcredit schemes because I have heard that they are very sustainable and respectful. It is very telling how he uses the word "slave" about his relationship with his possessions and wealthy lifestyle - I think this is very perceptive and that is really the truth - there is so much focus in the world on materialism, especially at the expense of justice and human rights, and it promises things which it just can't deliver. How wonderful that he did this before he missed his chance. I wish I could write to congratulate him!
Cheers,
Andria
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Permalink Reply by Craig Zelizer on -
Thanks. There are many interesting examples of this. There is a club where members choose to explore giving away 50% of their income, see http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/07/29/for_this_c...
Of course, the question of impact, where to donate, what works for any given person/family are all challenging issues.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Chrisikou on -
In this theatrical scene with us playing many roles - as Shakespeare once said, giving voice to truth - in life many of us experience many things, classified good or bad. Some people have the 'fluency' to accululate money, and others cann't. Some learn this trend over the other and so on. Personally I applaude the open mindness of people who want to share whatever they have with others, and in so doing, helping them to experience an other aspect of life. Rich people choosing to live with nothing, while giving away their wealth to others, helping them experience the life of affluence... This helps both parties to overcome their fantacies and grow up in spirit. Let us share then.... The leap of humanity to a Golden Era begins from this SHARING....
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Permalink Reply by Abdulai Deadehwai Swaray on -
What a lesson to learn from this, hmmm
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Permalink Reply by Augustine Kiptoo Lambert on -
This sounds awsome, this is really the touch of humanity I wish all people could come in touch with reality of humanity like this great fellow, though I respect the fact that this need to happen as per personal conscience, with the intrinsic modivation rather than the extrinsic modivation since it may result to negative impact to the growth and developement in the world.
I hope also this will set as role model and also a modivation to other billionares in the world, so as the gap between the rich and the poor can be breached, since the widening of this gap is a time bomb to humanty.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Chrisikou on
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It has been estimated by economists that the 3% of rich people of the world hold a tremendous amount of wealth. So much so, that if they decide to give away the 10% of it (which will have no significant reduction of their wealth) will ease the poverty of the whole world. Can you imagine that! The whole world could feel released! Nevertheless the individuals of the rest of the world could make a tremendous effect to the perpetual problems of this world: hunger, poverty, diseases, planetary distruction. And this simple change of life style is to stop the meat industry by remaining their clients: Be vegans!!! It has been proven that veganism is health, economy, morality, restoration of our precious planet, spiritual civilization! (the last conference with the title "Humanity's Leap to Golden Era" took place in Washington D.C., on 8th November 2009, and the above information about the impact of our personal dietary changes were the unanimous 'good practice policies' of the distinguished speakers from around the globe, NGOs, political figures and general public - attendees around 4.000 people). Live coverage of the event took place by the sattelite TV www.suprememasterTV.com where you can see the conference on the internet. Watching the wonderful film "Avatar" recently, I got all the right messages that covey to us the urgent necessity to change: personally, indifidually, socially, globaly. May God bless us all with love and integrity to step up to the needs of our present times and do the necessary changes, for our sake the sake of our children and the whole world! Yes we can do it.
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Permalink Reply by Stephen Oola on -
Good start. He needs to channel it well and help transform lives in a sustainable manner. He should invest the money in promoting education and peace building.Promoting sports and buidling talents amongst youths in conflict ridden societies is one way of contributing to this goal. Other millionaires should follow. But this must not be left to millionaires alone, each of us can give however litttle to help make the change we can believe in. Those who earns $100 @month can still give $5 to keep a child in school somewhere around the world or put food on fire for two days in Haiti-that needs no millionaire but you and me. Together we can do it.
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Permalink Reply by Vicky Chrisikou on
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Hello friend! I agree with you when you say that millionaires alone are not the ones who can give. It is not a 'money' issue alone. Each and everyone of us can offer SOMETHING, be it our presence, our time, our skills, attention, emotional support, a good word, a willing hand, anything to assert our positive presence in this life. Poverty, loneliness, weakness, inability, are real states of being with psychological and mental dimensions that we can deal with. Willingness to be part of the whole and part of the solution can cultivate compasion and solidarity. In the end we are all citizens of the same world, brothers and sisters with a lot to share and a lot to learn from each other. Denial of what goes around us in the end becomes our own prison... and what was initially used as a tool of 'protection' of ourselves from anxiety, becomes a state of existence worth of nothing. Yes my friend, wherever we are, together we can do it!
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Permalink Reply by LOVENIA PARCON NACES on -
excellent decision!
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