The motivation for writing this post came from the info-graphic above that Ben Bergeron published a few months ago. The thought provoking content of the simplistic, yet incredibly insightful message resonated with me at this moment of change in my life.
For too long I chased the dollar in my career and soon found myself in a position that was uncomfortable- and uncomfortable for a number of years. It took the traumatic experience of losing both my dad and brother in a short space of time to finally force me into action to make the life decisions that I always knew I needed to make- to live a rich and fulfilling life, but not necessarily a rich financial life.
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” -Dalai Lama
What do we mean by a wealth life?
Most of the time, when we refer to wealth we normally reference monetary abundance i.e. having more money or more assets to prove our wealth. However there are many other aspects of life where we can demonstrate wealth, for example we can be rich in time or experiences.
What is an interesting concept however is that we actually have a finite capacity for wealth in our lives and that could be made up of a combination of these different riches- with money being only one component. If we look at some extreme examples of this, it may help to illustrate what I am trying to say:
Consider an incredibly rich individual- right on the extreme end of richness. They have all the money they could ever wish for, but does that allow space for other wealth in their life? They may be working so hard that they have missed out on watching their children grow up, they may not even have had time to build a family, they may not have true friends- but be surrounded by acquaintances who are attracted purely to their money not them as an individual, they may not have taken a holiday in years, their health may be suffering, they may not trust their colleagues to run their business effectively so cannot switch off. Rich in money yes, but are they living a wealthy life???
On the opposite end of the money spectrum, consider an individual who has all the time in the world, but no money. Where do they get their next meal from, where will they sleep, how will they ever get the feeling of being safe? They may struggle to maintain relationships due to the lack of security, they and their family will feel the constant stress due to the lack of stability that money would provide. Lacking in money and consequently lacking in so many other essential components of life- does this extreme reflect a wealthy life.
So if we accept that wealth is more than simply an abundance of money or possessions- what are the other constituent parts can attain when we talk of a wealthy life?
What are our most basic needs?
The psychologist Maslow identified a hierarchy of basic human needs in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation. If our basic human survival needs are not met, none of our other more fulfilling needs can be met.
Maslow identified the following needs in priority order- with each one needing to be fully secure before we can move on to the next ones in the hierarchy:
Physiological needs- air to breath, heat, clothes, light, shelter, food, sleep, etc.
Safety needs- good health, personal security (our life not at risk), emotional security (we need to feel happy) and financial security.
Love and social belonging needs- we are social, tribal animals that need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance through family, friendship, intimacy and trust.
Esteem needs- self respect and having the respect of others.
Cognitive needs- having creativity, foresight, curiosity and meaning in our lives.
Aesthetic needs- the appreciation of beauty. Our ability to connect with nature.
Self actualisation needs- the realisation of our full potential.
When we look at these needs more critically, we can see that there are 4 overarching components that contribute to what we could consider a wealthy life-
Physical health
Mental health/wellbeing/happiness
Relationships
Financial security
All of these component clearly contribute to us meeting our own hierarchy of needs, but only we must decide on what priority we place each one.
Why do we feel the need to chase the dollar?
So why do we place so much worth on chasing a new job or larger salary- our ego will always encourage us to better ourselves, but where does this innate drive come from?
Often we lie to ourselves that we want the next promotion or salary enhancement- where as in reality we may prefer to have less financial wealth but have more time for our families, hobbies or just simply things that we love to do. We need to recognise that society and our culture is lying to us in order to get our ego to respond in this way.
The capitalist environment that we find ourselves immersed in 24/7 cannot be underestimated- it actively encourages us to want more. The lie that capitalism perpetuates is that once we have got more stuff through hard work we will be happy. Yet once we have attained that aspiration, we all know that feeling or desire does not go away- we simply change our dreams to want even more.
In simple terms, we aspire to keep up with the Jones’, but once we have kept up with them, we aspire to keep up with the new Jones’ from across the street that still have more than us. This is simply how capitalism works.
Corporations encourage us as consumers to consume more- their single goal is economic growth for their corporation. If they can get us as people to eat more and sleep less they have a source of economic growth as we will naturally be spending more of our hard earned money. Corporations can drive this in two ways; they can find new products or services that we desire- for example food delivery services such as Deliveroo, or they can find ways to cram more of our consuming into the same amount of time. A simple example of this is to encourage us to not only watch a programme on TV, but to also follow that programme on social media. This is not for our extended entertainment purposes, but to double our potential exposure to advertising…to encourage us to spend more, and ultimately work harder to earn more to cover that expense.
There is however an alternative approach to this hamster wheel of income and expenses- what would happen if we abandoned this goal of constant economic growth and consumerism and chose a different set of goals to pursuit in life? If we redefined prosperity as not having more stuff, but having more time- time that we could spend with our loved ones, time in nature or time pursuing things that we really loved doing, could be a viable alternative?
This change of focus is defined by Dr Jason Hickel as Steady state growth. If we adopt a deathbed mentality- recognising that in our final hours we won’t crave more stuff, or regret the purchases we didn’t make. I would hope we will want more of the other path- more meaningful memories and more experiences that we can look bank fondly on. In essence we don’t want to live a fast life, we want to live a good life.
How do we place a value on things?
In a recent podcast, Joe Rogan offered some though on this in saying:
“Look at the car he’s driving, look at the watch he’s wearing, look at the girl he’s with.
That’s unattainable to many people so it seems like it’s valuable, but then you attained it.
And then you realised oh, this is not valuable, this is just difficult to get.
And there’s a difference. There’s a big difference.”
Some things in life aren’t valuable, they’re just difficult to get. We’re often told that worthwhile things are difficult to attain, because if they weren’t difficult to attain, they wouldn’t be worthwhile. Attaining something worthwhile is often going to be difficult, but just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile. Sometimes the simple things to attain, that we experience every day, may actually be the most valuable things in our lives. The relationships that we value shouldn’t be hard to attain- they should feel easy. Our friends should make our life better, not more difficult. Our parents should make us feel enough, not insufficient.
What do we mean by wealthy in time?
Life as a concept of time can be measured in various ways- we have on average only 4000 weeks (Oliver Burkeman)) or in simple heartbeats (Mo Gawdat)- the one thing that is certain is that there is only a limited number of these measures before it all finally comes to an end.
As unpalatable as it may be, we are all going to die at some point- so exactly how are we going to choose to spend these all important weeks or heartbeats in making sure that we live the most fulfilling life as possible?
We cannot keep living like there is a guaranteed tomorrow- because there isn’t- the only resource that we have is time and we need to spend our time wisely and intentionally.
So what is real wealth in life?
Awe and wonder of the simple things in life- sunrises, night skies, nature, open space- returning to our primal feelings of being both predator and prey! Taking time to reflect on the enormity of these experiences helps to quieten our ego and allows us to live more of our life in the present.
Breathing, slowing down, taking in everything around you, absorbing it all. We often fall into the rat race too easily and become blinded by running on the hamster wheel, rushing from one moment to another, and never really appreciate what’s around us. By taking moments in the day to simply just slow down and be grateful for what the day offers further helps to ground us in the here and now.
Having support structures- family and friends. Beyond our basic physiological and safety needs, our love and social belonging needs are so high up our hierarchy of needs, but how often do we recognise this in our daily lives? We cannot get away from the fact that we are tribal animals, with tribal needs. We need to feel apart of something, and when the going gets tough in life, we need the support of our tribe to get us through. We need to invest in these relationships if they are to remain strong and supportive.
Getting outside as much as possible- investing in a love of the natural world- we have an innate ancestral need to be out and about in nature. We were not designed to spend our days in square boxes, sitting on chairs staring at screens.
Eating natural foods- it’s good for our guts, and our guts are good for our health and wellbeing- we need to look after them.
Surrounding ourselves with people that care for us, people who value us and love us for who we are. All too often we can find ourselves surrounded by BMW’s (Bitches, moaners and whiners) who drag the positivity out of us. CAVE people (Complain about virtually everything) will always extenuate the negativity in any situation in life, and negativity is contagious. If we immerse ourselves in a polluted, toxic environment, the odds of living a positive, intentional life will be stacked against us.
Connecting with someone you love. Tell the people you love, you love them all the time. We only have a limited number of weeks and heartbeats- it is important that the people that we love know we love them.
Being kind- it is a sign of strength and makes other and ourselves feel good. It’s a lot more rewarding to show love than hate.
Daily gratitude for what we have. Often it is too easy to experience dissatisfaction with daily issues or feel guilt with how we spend our life. If we are grateful for what we have- we will always be satisfied. If we crave things that we haven’t got, we will forever be dissatisfied. Appreciating the immediate moments that are in front of you, because those moments are what life is- not the past, or the future, but the collection of random moments in the present that we experience day to day.
Sleeping well. Our longevity gene is directly linked to our circadian clock and our sleep cycle. If we don’t get enough sleep- we age faster. Unfortunately as age is already a major factor in limiting our sleep, our ageing process accelerates at an even faster rate if we restrict our sleep. It is a vicious circle if we fail to get enough sleep.
Less is more
So as a couple, this is where we are at…moving towards an early retired life that has less possessions, less stuff and considerably less income.
By removing the things that don’t really matter in our lives- we have more time for the really important things in life- our physical health, our social relationships and a feeling of pure happiness.
We enter the world with nothing, and ultimately leave the world with nothing. This being the case, there can be only one real purpose in life- making a difference for others. -Buddhist life quote
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