| Geoffrey Holt was the caretaker of a mobile home park in Hinsdale, a town of 4,200 people in the southwest corner of New Hampshire. His mobile home had no TV or computer; the legs of his bed went through the floor. While he collected hundreds of model cars and train sets as well as classical records and books about history, he gave up driving a car and rode his lawn mower around town. “He seemed to have what he wanted, but he didn’t want much,” his best friend said.
However, Holt died earlier this year with a secret: he was a multimillionaire.
He had worked as a production manager at a grain mill and invested his money. In his will, he gave it all away: $3.8 million to the town to benefit the community in the areas of education, health, recreation, and culture. A town official said, “I know he didn’t have a whole lot of family, but nonetheless, to leave it to the town where he lived in . . . It’s a tremendous gift.”
Mr. Holt’s benevolence was indeed a gift, which Webster defines as “something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation.” Let’s consider this definition and Mr. Holt’s example on this Thanksgiving Day.
A lesson from Cubans on happiness
Since six in ten of us are hoping to avoid politics today, we’ll go a different direction: respondents to a recent poll said they would need to make $284,000 a year to achieve happiness. This would be quite a raise since the median household income in the US stands at about $74,000 annually. While our median net worth is $192,900, we’d also want $1.2 million in the bank to feel content.
Perhaps we should learn from history. |
