500 Words A Week - What’s Our Relationship To Wealth?
Our current modern climate has placed a rather singular focus above all else to the achievement of status, financial wealth and material accumulation. Rather than understanding that these aspects are only one thing among the many others for which defines the direction of our lives.
We have somehow arrived at a place that views financial wealth as a proxy for being a person of virtue. That bestows the possession of money with the moral connotations of being a good human being. That the achievement of wealth is the basis on which our contentment is built. For in fact the opposite may be true, when we take a closer look we can see the fragmented relationships the path to financial wealth can leave in its wake.
Wealth can be measured in many ways. It is not only the accumulation of financial means, it can mean an abundance of anything. We have just become so attuned to relating wealth to financial wealth.
“A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought - they must be earned.” - Naval Ravikant
Do these aspects enter into our definition of wealth? To the sick, health is wealth. To the lonely, love or companionship is wealth. Why do so many of us take these aspects for granted? It may be because we never lived a life without them, and we can’t yet fathom what it is to be without them. A task for us is to learn to appreciate these aspects of life, before a form of calamity forces us to recognise what we have, or worse before a tragedy takes these away from us.
Wealth can also be relative to what we have, compared to what we long for. In accurately thinking about our expectations, in analysing our media created longings, we may realise we have far more than we thought. When we constantly hear that we can have and achieve anything we set our hearts to, it brings a deep sense of longing to our current situation. That what we have and where we are, aren’t good enough. That we need more. Unbeknownst to ourselves we have stepped on the perpetual cycle of achievement. All this has given us is an anxiety that we are far from being all we may be. We have to attempt to suppress our inflaming appetites that are always seeking more.
“Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we seek something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually own.” - Alain De Botton
The obsession with wealth and status, has set us down a path of endlessly striving from one goal to the next. We tell ourselves that the achievement of the next goal will bring us some rest and resolution. Regardless whether we achieve it or not, it’s still the same face staring at ourselves in the mirror. With the same thoughts, insecurities and wishes. Maybe rather than becoming obsessed over the external achievement of goals, we should spend time contemplating the quiet corners of our mind. Where these insecurities lay hidden, finding why we are set on this endless path of struggling from one goal to the next. Understanding what’s our motivation. What’s the reason we can’t place ourselves on a path destined towards more internal discovery? For maybe the true benchmark for success and progress is who we are today compared to who we were yesterday.
