My fellow Kingwood resident (call him CR) measures one’s success in terms of dollars (wealth), and he says that when Einstein died, he reportedly was worth $1 million. It’s foolish to measure Einstein’s success in terms of dollars. Should we measure the success of Gregor Mendel, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, or Mother Teresa in terms of their monetary wealth at some point during their life? Who besides CR cares how much money those persons accumulated? None of those persons is remembered for their accumulated wealth. Instead, all but Mother Teresa are remembered for their scientific discoveries. Their contributions to our understanding of the way the world works measure their success. They would be remembered and revered even if they had been destitute upon their death. Einstein was the exact opposite of CR, for Einstein cared little for money. CR brags about being “a rich and greedy person.” A greedy person is one who has enough but still wants more. Einstein earned quite a bit of money without trying to do so. He became the most successful scientist in the world, and many universities were willing to pay large sums to get him on their faculty. And he wrote or co-wrote several very successful books. The royalties from those books alone surely brought him a good annual income. His lifelong goal was not to become rich; it was to simplify and unify the system of theoretical physics. His monetary earnings were unintended consequences of his success at achieving the goal he set for himself. To gauge his success in terms of his monetary wealth at any point in his life completely misses the point. CR’s monetary metric probably would result in Mother Teresa being considered a failure!