"One of the weaknesses of our age is our apparent inability to distinguish our need from our greed."
Ahhh.... Pyramid Schemes. They've been around, it seems, forever. They're always around to some extent, but every so often, they pop up anew, as a new batch of individuals arrive on the scene, eager to make a quick and easy buck - or $5,000 or $40,000 or whatever the amount du jour is.
I shouldn't be too quick to judge, as I myself have lost an embarassingly large amount of money on such things in my eager and ignorant youth. You tell yourself that It's like the lotto --- You can't win if you don't play, but the reality, and the statistics are, in both, that only a very limited few (like 20%) ever actually make the big win, or in pyramid style, to the top.
If, somehow, you have managed to remain ignorant of the pyramid scheme (I mean other than the Federal one), it looks something like this: You join at the bottom level, giving X amount of money to the person on top. You then recruit at least 2 people who also give that amount of money, but to the person who is just below the person on top. They then each get two more to give their X amount of money to the third from the top. With each new group, YOU are moving up toward the top, until you are the recipient, of whatever X is from each of 4, 6, 8, 16, or ??? depending on the number of layers or levels there are. Once you've reached the top and received your money, you're done. Yahoo! (There are an endless number of variations on the theme - how much you give, to whom, and so forth, but the principle remains fairly constant.)
However, when you work the math on these things, for you (and many others simultaneously playing), it builds up rather quickly, into the hundreds, thousands, and yes, millions who have to give their money and play before you end up at the top.
The difficulty is that there just aren't that many people willing to play. You often alienate your friends trying to convince them to play (so you can make your way up), and one of three things happens: 1. You make your money (not likely), 2. You end up breaking even (possible), 3. You lose your money, AND in every case, cause possibly hundreds or thousands or millions to lose their money - money that might have been taken from the food or rent or medicine funds in order to hopefully make that "Big Score," and potentially lose a lot of friends in the process.
For fairly obvious reasons, pyramid schemes are illegal, and those who push them have come up with a wide variety of legal and other answers to why THEIRS is NOT a pyramid scheme. One of the biggest things lately is to put a compassionate, new age, or spiritual twist to them, by calling them gifting circles or empowerment circles, and so forth, the further caveat is that you are simply GIVING your money to someone in need, and then of course, the universe will return it to you multi-fold. And I find this particularly sad, because the reality is that easily 90% or more of the people doing it are REALLY seeking the money, as much as they say they want to help each other. I even have a friend who had an abundance group, and when she suggested that they make it a prayer group without the abundance idea, everyone quit coming!
So, I think I've come up with the Ultimate Pyramid Scheme. I call it the World Peace Pyramid Scheme! We leave in the idea of pyramid scheme so people will get excited, but then we add the World Peace bit.
Here's how it works:
1. You make a commitment to pray for peace every day. (You can call it pray for, meditate on, think a good thought about.... whatever)
2. You recruit at least 2 friends to commit to doing the same.
3. They recruit at least 2 friends each to commit to doing the same.
4. They recruit at least 2 friends each to commit to doing the same.
5..... Well, you get the picture.
6. Besides simply praying for peace (or whatever), they each commit to trying to LIVE that peace - to watch within themselves when they are not peaceful, to themselves or others or the environment, etc. and correct that.
How do you get to the top and WIN? Well, as you can guess, the numbers add up pretty quick:
People Day
1 Day one
2 Day two
4 Day three
8 Day four
16 Day five
32 Day six
64 ..........
128
256
512
1024
2048
4096
8192
16,384 Day fifteen
Anyway, believe it or not, within 30 days it will reach over One Billion!!! And then that continues to double each day, so that within just a few more days, EVERY PERSON ON THE PLANET is Praying for Peace, and seeking to make their actions match their peaceful thoughts.
So, what do you win at the end? Duh!!!! How about a place that might actually be worth living in, the kind of place that the very thought of which should bring tears to your eyes. Why not, instead of thinking about our own greed, we start thinking about the World's NEEDS, and how to make this place a paradise for EVERYONE?
(And a prayer)
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