Real Wealth
In my musty old copy of Fatu-Hiva, Thor Heyerdahl explains that ‘wealth in Papenoo was not measured, as among us, by counting what we have; what counted there was how one felt.’
This is certainly an interesting observation, for we hold wealth in mystique. Wealth is the holy grail that will make our lives truly successful. Most of us dream of having wealth, and feel sure that our lives will be better if we have more. And most of us spend the majority of our lives on this quest for wealth, experiencing loads of frustration, stress, and anxiety along the way.
What if we defined wealth as ‘how we felt?’. After all, why do you want wealth? Why do you want to be financially stable? Why do you want great relationships with your friends and life-mates and children? Why do you want any of the goals you’ve set for yourself?
Probably, you’ll find that you don’t want the goal itself. What you really want is to feel happy or good.
Lots and Lots of Money
Let’s say I can give you a million-dollar-a-year income. Along with this comes the guarantee that you’ll be miserable for the rest of your life. Or you can have a $40,000 a year income, and the guarantee that you’ll be incredibly happy for the rest of your life. Which would you take?
Why is it, then, that we spend so much time stressed-out trying to pursue all sorts of external goals? You probably devote 40 hours or more each week to pursuing more money. If you truly believe that money equals happiness, then you’re on the right track. But if you have a sneaking suspicion that money might just be a means to happiness, you may want to ask yourself if it’s the best means to happiness.
If you suspect it might not be, you might then want to ask yourself how much time you devote each week to pursuing the things that will have a better chance of making you happy.
For myself, it became clear early on that my attitude had a lot to do with my happiness, and that trying to get more (more security, more money, more love) didn’t contribute much at all to my happiness. In short, the quest for more, more, more was kind of stupid if I didn’t know how to enjoy my present situation.
If we don’t know how to enjoy our cake, it doesn’t matter how spectacular it is! It’s all wasted on us. If only we had cultivated that most basic of human skills – the ability to enjoy our present moment – then it would make sense to gain more money or friends or a nicer house!
Might we be better off if we devote 40 hours a week to discovering what will really bring us happiness, and maybe a few spare moments each week to reading a nice book on ‘How to Earn $27 an Hour’?
No Money
I know. If we spent all our time meditating, we’d run out of money and our lives would descend into abject misery. I got to see it over and over during my summer in the woods – people can’t stand doing ‘nothing.’ Of course, by the end of the week, they had quite a bit of trouble returning to ‘civilization’ and its craziness. When you’re living on the fruits of the land and spend your whole day just doing what you want, it’s difficult to understand why you should return to spending all your waking hours trying desperately to upkeep all the things civilization demands we have – like cars and houses and cell phones and lots of ‘friends’.
Still, I’m not suggesting you go live in a hut in the wilderness. But I am suggesting that you’ll find life a lot more enjoyable and worthwhile if you spend more time discovering the root of happiness. Then you can make life decisions based on your own discoveries, instead of just blindly following the route laid before you.
The Amazing You
You are a magnificently intelligent creature, full of awareness. Question everything! Take the time to make your own decisions. Some would argue that we’re herd beasts, meant to simply follow without thought or clarity. I don’t think we are. And you certainly don’t have to be. For all you know, you have this one life laid before you. Is it going to be a blind struggle against forces you don’t understand? Or is it going to be an incredible, inspiring story for you, and everyone around you, to enjoy?
It’s up to you.
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