Being Rich

Dealing with the public by operating an insurance agency was an interesting experience. I got to know how people spent their money. In 1988 my office manager, I’ll call her Dee, had an epiphany. She said, “I just realized something. If you make a lot of money and you spend a lot of money you’re just as poor as anyone else.” Dee discovered a basic truth about finance. She saw what happened to people who always wanted more possessions.

One of my favorite books is The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. Every day they give a quote from a stoic philosopher and address how it can impact our lives. Stoics are ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. One of their beliefs had to do with wealth. Here are a few of their quotes.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” Epictetus

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” Socrates

“Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more.” Seneca

What they are saying is control what I want. Dee found that if you make a lot and spend it you are poor financially. It’s also true that if I have a lot and am not satisfied, then I am impoverished. However, if what I have is enough, then I am rich. Wealth is a function of satisfaction, not possession.

Other philosophers have put it this way:

“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.” Henry David Thoreau

“Happiness comes from the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.” Storm Jameson

As my friend David says, “He who is easily pleased is frequently pleased.”

Studies show that quality of life doesn’t improve once a moderate level of income is reached. When our girls were old enough to watch a little TV we didn’t let them see commercials. Mostly a commercial’s message is that my life isn’t good enough unless I have what they are selling. Its purpose is to make me dissatisfied. The internet is even worse. It’s a very scary thing to accumulate a lot and find out it’s not enough. The lives of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe come to mind, among others. They got exactly what they thought they wanted and look how it turned out.

I’ve been fortunate to be easily pleased most of my life. What I want is interaction with people I care about, so I’m rich. I can think of many times where I had little, but felt rich, here are two examples.

Once was the day we brought our first daughter home from the hospital. She was six weeks premature and a very high risk pregnancy. We brought her home on Thanksgiving and had burgers for our meal we picked up on the way home. It felt like a feast.

The next time was two years later on Thanksgiving. Our second daughter, also premature, was coming home from the hospital the next day. My wife was with her at the hospital. I was taking care of our first daughter at home. Our banquet was peanut butter sandwiches and it was wonderful.

The best way I’ve found to be rich is by being grateful, see Stop, Look, Go Another is to think others more than myself, see Small Package A third is to think about what I have instead of what I don’t. That’s summed up well in the final scene of the movie Passengers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApM76d4tsHY

Being rich makes for a beautiful life and it’s about satisfaction, not accumulation.

May you have enough today, one moment at a time.