Wealth Isn't Just Cash

The older I get the more radical I become in some ways, but also the smaller my world gets. I don’t need the huge adventures – to me an afternoon in the pool, locking eyes with a bird outside, seeing a majestic deer family stride across my lawn, a juicy bite into a cob of corn, the sweet liquor of a fresh plum, the first delicious taste of cold water in the morning, the anticipation of a film or book you look forward to, falling asleep cuddled with a book or a dog, up late past your bedtime on a Friday night watching movies, the bridge in a song you really love, the crinkle of paper opening a candy you like, the tender laugh you have with someone you know and love very well, the way the sun peeks through the trees at sunrise – the billion little joys of every single day seem so overwhelmingly luxurious I do not long for more.

I worry about when health robs some of them from me some day and I try to treasure each one.

I was driving to a dinner reservation last evening and contemplating all of this. How fortunate I am for every one of these special things and even more so that I fully understand now how important they are. I did not always know. I think it takes aging and spiritual lack to be able to take the temperature of true abundance. It’s not a bank account brimming with bills – that’s great if you can get it but if the cost of it is that you don’t notice the birdsongs at dawn, you’re not living in abundance you’re living in tremendous lack. I have lived in that lack. I also have lived in a lack of cash so don’t think I romanticize that either – one must have enough both of money and time (a room of one’s own, to steal from Virginia Woolf, means so much more than just four walls and a table and chair set – it means freedom and freedom requires a certain financial and chronological commitment). But to be without any money is no worse than to be without any time to enjoy the money you have.

Want to be wealthy? Make a list of 20 things that would give you joy and indulge in them liberally. When I say joy I don’t mean temporary pleasure. I mean soul food. It’s different for everyone but there are some fundamental things that fill the cup of most humans – beauty, love, intellectual stimulation, flavor, joyful movement, connection, nature.

Want to be wealthier still? Find a way to share these things with someone else or to make it possible for them to have them independently of you. Creating an oasis of peace and joy for another person is even more rewarding than when we do it for ourselves.

Whatever you do, have an abundant day – even if that just means 10 minutes in the fresh air listening to the rain coming down.