Eat the Rich? But I'm Lactose-Intolerant...

Apparently Occupy Wall Street is running out of money. Is this a case of irony or a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Everyone has preconceived ideas about others. Some were embedded in us at an early age (usually the big ones, about a person’s race, nationality or religion) and become beliefs that are so strong they feel like The Truth. Others we create ourselves, often through repetition. For example, after many trips to the DMV over the years, my preconceived idea is that all DMV employees are missing the humor gene.

Many, not all, people who are in the 99 percent of the wealth bracket believe that the rich are greedy, corrupt or assholes. (Or, of course, greedy corrupt assholes.) This view of the wealthy may have been inherited straight from your parents, if that was their belief; you may have watched your Uncle Scrooge screw over his employees or family; you may have even worked for one of these strange creatures yourself whose only offense was offering you minimum wage while he displayed expensive Persian Rugs - on his wall (the epitome of rich)!

But here’s the thing about to-the-core beliefs: if you believe that the rich are the lowest form of life, you will never become rich. How can you? To be rich would mean that you are a nasty son-of-a-bitch, and that ain’t gonna happen. So in order to preserve the idea that you are a good, kind, hard-working soul, you will never allow yourself to break through that particular salary ceiling (we all have a specific limit above which we consider well-to-do; for some it’s $250,000, for others it’s $25,000).

So if you want to escape the confines of the 99% and infiltrate the 1%, peel off your bumper sticker that says, “Eliminate poverty, eat the rich!” How will you ever become wealthy when the clink of cutlery has you looking over your shoulder in fear?