Guard against the insulation of wealth,

the arrogance of complacency.

A wealthy person is shielded from many of the worries the less fortunate face. How to find a job when her employer closes in a recession. How to pay mounting medical bills when health insurance isn’t available. How to feed his children when food prices keep rising, but hourly pay remains stagnant.

For a wealthy person, it’s a matter of choices, not questions of survival. An existence where, yes, there are conflicts and disappointments, ups and downs, but basic survival issues do not take center stage.

Smug and feeling invincible, many who are wealthy and powerful very easily become arrogant. Convinced that their success is due to their hard work and cleverness, they believe that those who have little just haven’t worked hard enough. Or that they are just plain lazy. Negating any sense of empathy for people who have little, those who have much can advance to having outright disdain for others.

A truly selfish—and tragic—waste of good fortune.

Even when others will not know,

I will.

The scenario: We use a self-scan lane to check out of the grocery store. Grabbing our bags, we run through the just-starting rain to our car. As we’re hurriedly loading the bags into our car, we notice a package of nuts. Not remembering having scanned it, we check the receipt. No nuts! We have two options.

(1) Tell ourself it’s no big deal—plus it’s raining harder now! And just drive away.

(2) Run back through the rain into the store, apologize, and pay for the nuts.

We can justify our reasons for choosing option one: all that rain, we need to get home, we’re a good customer who buys a lot at the store, it’s only a few dollars, etc. What if we choose option two? We’ll get wet! But we also get to have a clear conscience. When we unload the bags at home, we can look at the nuts and feel good that we did the right thing. We’ll not be bothered by guilt every time we eat a few.

Doing what is right may be inconvenient. Most likely, no one will know about it. But we’ll know. And get to feel good about doing the right thing.

Getting directions to Carnegie Hall . . .