Discovering your idea of wealth
Usually, when people think of being rich, they think of money. They would love to win the lottery and have more money than they ever dreamed of. To them this would be wealth… or they think it would be. Wealth and prosperity mean different things to different people. If you want to acquire wealth, you need to know what it means to you.
Different ways to be rich
I remember reading an article years ago about how a program to encourage people to have smaller families failed in India. Whoever was in charge of encouraging people to have smaller families had a poster developed. There were two photos. One image was a family with many children living in what some would call a slum house with only the bare necessities. The other was a family with two children and many luxuries.
You might think that this was a great way to portray the positive effects of a smaller family. The difference was in the values of the people who saw the poster. Instead of saying, “Look what we can have if we only have two children,” the response was, “Look at that poor family with only two children.”
What you need to feel rich
Whether you feel rich or not depends on your personal values. Some people want a large family. Others wish to help the world through their actions. Still others want the security of a job that makes a lot of money. There are those who feel rich as long as they have the freedom to do what they most want in life.
I know a man in his 50s whose deepest desire, since he first got on a surfboard as a teenager, was to ride the biggest waves on the planet. He also loved to teach. Being a teacher in a secondary school was ideal for him. He saved his money all year long and spent his summer surfing in various parts of the world. That is wealth for him.
Big lottery winners often say that winning was the worst thing that happened to them. All that money didn’t get them what they wanted most. The key is knowing what you want most. What will you have that lets you know that you have achieved true wealth for yourself? It’s not usually money. It’s what money can buy… support you and your family, go surfing every summer until you can’t keep your balance on the board, house, cars… safety. Money can be the vehicle for what you really want. It can also be an impediment. Discover your deepest desires and how to achieve them and you will have found true wealth.