an open letter to the billionaires (and millionaires) of the world

Photo by Tim Mossholder

you don’t know me, but i want you to know that i have judged you. for so many things. the truth is, i have no idea who you are or what motivates you to amass such extraordinary amounts of money, control and power. still, for many reasons, i have judged you for being more committed to your own self-interest than to the well-being of life on earth. however, judging you serves neither me nor you. so i have decided to offer you my love in the form of a letter.

at this time of great challenge, we have an incredible opportunity to make real, lasting changes which can truly change the course of history. will we take advantage of it or squander it, returning to business as usual? will those of us who have so much be willing to simplify our lives and share, or will we go back to life as we knew it?

at this opportune moment, i am asking you to make the right choice.

i am asking you to give up the life you have been living for something much greater. i am asking you to give away your disproportionate income and access to material wealth in order to help create a level playing field for all. i am asking you to realize that your seemingly bottomless hunger for power and control will never satisfy you and will only destroy you and everything around you. i am asking you to open the doors of your conference rooms, in which you have been making decisions for all of us, to the indigenous and marginalized whose voices have been silenced for too long. i am asking you step back and listen to them, for they carry wisdom beyond our imagining. i am asking you to consider that what you think is good and right never has been, because it is based in a story created for the benefit of only a very few.

i ask these things of you because, although i don’t earn nearly what you do, i look like you. i live with the same unexamined, unearned privileges as you. i live in a country which was made for my benefit at the expense of the people who were forced to make it what it is. 

but the truth is, our generation’s time for comfort and having whatever we want is over. we have had our time. we have had more comforts and privileges than any other generation in human history... and still it has not been enough. 

the truth is, it never will be.

our comforts and privileges had have come at the greatest cost- to our planet, to our children and generations to come, to billions of our fellow humans, to countless other species, and to ourselves as we have tried to feed the insatiable Hungry Ghost. the wealth, the homes, cars, special privileges, the perceived power, uninhibited travel, leisure. none of them will mean anything if you wake up one day in the not too distant future to realize you are all alone (some of you in bunkers), with your security measures and your stockpiles of food and “necessities”... and just each other. you will experience a misery greater than you can possibly imagine.

and, in that misery, you will awaken to the fact that the only way you could have won is if we had all won.

i wish for you, and all of us, that this possible future does not come to be. 

i wish for you to know you are welcome in our homes, we who are humbly walking this earth with less than you may want to imagine living with, who are smiling, laughing, singing, dancing for a new human presence on Earth. i wish for you to be celebrating, hand in hand, side by side, with all of us who are working the land, who are planting trees, who are who are building tiny homes and earthships, who are writing poetry, who are sharing food and resources with our neighbors. 

i wish for you to know you are one of us. beneath all the trappings of your lifestyles and positions, your skin burns under the blazing sun. your eyes witness the beauty of crystalline branches in the snow. your ears hear the cries of the many who have suffered because of your choices. you breathe in the fragrance of spring flowers. you taste the bitterness of regret. your heart beats, in time to the rhythm of your life, and will stop beating one day- sooner than you probably wish. 

i also want you to know that you are not alone.

i believe you’re afraid to let go of all that’s familiar to you. i understand. sometimes i’m afraid, too. to admit that everything i thought was true about life is not true. that everything- my nice, comfortable, white privileged life- was not what i thought. that i’m not a “good white person,” and that there is no such thing. sometimes i’m afraid to let it go for a future which doesn’t look at all like what i thought it would. but i know that, if i don’t let go, the future will not be one any of us wants.

in truth, it is a house of cards... built from something disguised as democracy, on the backs and over the bodies of people who don’t look like us. in truth, we cannot afford to make being a billionaire, or even a millionaire, something to strive for. in truth, we cannot afford to go back to normal. we know where that road leads.

in pondering all of this for myself, i know that i must trust and to let go into this process.

because i see and know what’s possible. i see what’s blossoming in myself when i allow myself to slow down and be silent. i feel the pain deep inside myself and everyone when i pause. i know that suffering is part of life, and that, within the suffering lies the gift. but we cannot receive the gift fully until we allow ourselves to fully embrace the pain. i choose to meet this moment with as much humility and openness as possible, even if it means i must give up the things i thought i could count on. 

what if you could also choose differently? 

would you sit at our table for a meal? stay in our homes for a night or a week to learn what it is to walk in our shoes? would you join us as we pull weeds in the garden? care for patients who are dying? comfort those who are sick? deliver food to our elders? open our doors and hearts to those whose lives have looked very different from ours? sit together in silence?

this does not mean you have to give away everything. it means taking a hard look at the things you take for granted which create the vast chasm that cuts you off from the rest of humanity. it means being willing to give away at least 90% of your money and possessions to realize that you never needed that much in the first place. it means reducing your annual income to a living wage, so each and every person can have enough. it means knowing that happiness is not measured by the amount of money or things you have, but by the truly loving connections you have in your life. it means realizing that you will be far more taken care of in the verdant valley with us than you ever will be in your ivory towers.

it means realizing that the things you think are necessary are a trap for your soul.

what if, in letting go and giving away the excess, you experience more love, more connection, more comfort and nourishment than you could have ever conceived of? what if your deepest happiness depended on the happiness of all? what if you remembered you are part of everything, not separate from it all?

i ask you to consider my invitation. i love you and i am here to walk with you.

with hope and determination,

ayreanna amor

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