Existential Thought - What Is Wealth?

"We spend our lives pursuing wealth, often without ever stopping to ask what it actually is."

Whats the difference between being rich and being wealthy is my first question?

When you are young, you want to be rich - you tell all your friends how rich you are going to be… as you get older, you start to understand that anyone can become rich, but not everyone can become wealthy.

So what is it to be rich? I believe it is having a relatively high income with a spend to match. When people see you, they see your riches. Whereas and very much in contrast, being wealthy is not always so visible. Its often not loud or flashy. It moves in silence and compounds over time. True wealth is measured in assets and not bling (though some bling is very valuable). Wealth is also found in having the financial freedom to not need for work. Where work is a past-time or a rite of passage rather than a necessity. Rich people are defined by their ability to afford expensive things. Wealthy people on the other hand own and accumulate both freedom and time.

A few years ago, if you had asked me what wealth looked like, I probably would have given you a fairly conventional answer.

A beautiful home.

Financial security.

Successful businesses.

The ability to travel.

The ability to provide.

Perhaps even a little status.

And to some extent, I still believe those things matter.

Money matters.

Security matters.

The ability to care for the people you love matters.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is usually speaking from a position where they no longer have to worry about money either because they have too much of it or have no hope of ever attaining it.

As I have endured season after season, growing older and experienced both periods of abundance and periods of enormous pressure, I have started to question whether wealth is actually what we think it is. Or at least the labels we place on it.

Because I have met wealthy people who are deeply unhappy. Some of the unhappiest people I know!

I have met successful people who are prisoners of their own success. I have felt like this at times through the ebbs and flows of life.

I have met people with extraordinary possessions but no peace or sanity.

If anything, I have met many people that have been corrupted by their wealth and while its not for me to judge, I have seen their personalities evolve and not for the better.

And then, I have met people with comparatively little who seem genuinely and abundantly rich, because they are happy and they are thriving in their context.

Which raises an uncomfortable question.

What exactly are they rich in? And why didn’t I call it wealth?

The Wealth Illusion

Society has largely taught us to measure wealth in numbers.

Net worth.

Revenue.

Square footage.

Cars.

Watches.

Investment portfolios.

Followers.

Titles.

Yet none of these things necessarily tell us whether a person is actually wealthy.

They simply tell us what they own.

There is a difference.

Because ownership and wealth are not always the same thing.

A man may own five houses and yet have no time to enjoy any of them.

Another may own very little and spend every evening with his family, sleeping peacefully and waking each day excited by life.

Who is wealthier?

The answer becomes less obvious.

Time: The Forgotten Currency

As children, we think money is the ultimate currency.

As adults, we realise it is time.

You can always make more money.

You cannot make more time.

No billionaire can buy another year.

No entrepreneur can purchase another childhood with their children.

No executive can buy back missed moments.

As I have become older, I have increasingly come to believe that one of the purest expressions of wealth is control over your own time.

The ability to decide:

Where you go.

When you go.

Who you spend time with.

What work you do.

How you live.

And most importantly, not having to ask for permission before making any of those decisions.

That may be one of the greatest luxuries available to us.

Because if somebody controls your time, to some extent they also control your life.

Peace Is Wealth

I once heard someone say:

"If you can sleep peacefully at night, you are richer than many millionaires."

At first, I thought it sounded overly simplistic.

I no longer think that.

Peace is extraordinarily valuable.

Peace of mind.

Peace in your relationships.

Peace in knowing you are living in alignment with your values.

Peace in not needing to constantly prove yourself.

There are people who have accumulated fortunes and simultaneously lost their peace.

And I often wonder whether they would make the trade in reverse. I know what I would do. What I am building and what I desire. Do you?

Health: The Wealth We Ignore

It is perhaps a little peculiar, synchronistic or coincidental that Wealth and Health rhyme.

Health is perhaps the most under-appreciated form of wealth.

Most of us only realise its value when it begins to deteriorate or when its gone.

A person with poor health would often and eagerly trade every possession they have for another chance at wellness.

Yet while we possess it, we frequently neglect it. What is that exactly? Why are we prone or conditioned to take what is we have for granted?

We sacrifice sleep.

We sacrifice exercise.

We sacrifice relationships.

We sacrifice our minds and bodies in pursuit of more.

More money.

More status.

More success.

More things.

At some point, the question has to be asked:

What is the point of becoming wealthy if we are too exhausted or unwell to enjoy it? Ah, but because we are not always conscious - we do not think about it until it is happening to us and sometimes, then, its too late.

Relationships: The Ultimate Asset

As you lie on your deathbed, very few people regret not attending one more meeting to make more money.

The biggest regret is often and always not spending more time with loved ones.

Relationships may ultimately be our greatest source of wealth.

Always Family first.

Friendships.

Love.

Community.

Belonging.

It is true that only in serving others, do we find ourselves.

The irony is that many of us sacrifice these very things in order to become “wealthy”.

Only to later discover that we traded away the very things that make life fuller, richer, wealthier. Better. More meaningful.

The Hedonic Treadmill

The difficult truth is that human beings adapt remarkably quickly. And this is our cage.

The house(s) becomes normal.

The promotion becomes expected.

The new car(s) loses its novelty.

The income increase becomes the new baseline.

We continually move the goalposts.

"I'll be happy when..."

"I'll feel secure when..."

"I'll relax when..."

The problem is that "when" rarely arrives.

Because enough keeps moving.

As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed:

"Wealth is like seawater; the more we drink, the thirstier we become."

Perhaps wealth is not simply accumulation.

Rather it is also about our ability to appreciate that journey and growth. To understand that it only means something if it is deeper than just accumulation. Fundamentally that is what we are doing here - building things that will live to grow beyond us and benefit future generations. That perhaps is the true measure of wealth.

But, What Is Enough?

This may be one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves.

How much is enough?

How much money?

How many businesses?

How many possessions?

How much recognition?

Because if we never define enough, we may spend our entire lives chasing a finish line that does not exist.

And perhaps that is the greatest poverty of all.

To possess much, yet never feel that it is sufficient. To constantly feel hungry while consuming. To never feel satiated. This human condition … What is it, what is it called? Avarice?

A Different Definition

If perhaps we didnt measure wealth by what we have.

But rather by what we no longer need.

- The person that has no need for work and yet is content whatever their station in life. Could be the fisherman living in a hut in a village or a retired banker living in a mansion in that very same village. The measure is the same - can they do what they want, when they want, without ever needing to ask for permission?

- The person that has no need to impress. They have done it all and seen it all and understand that there is no return in investing in likes.

- The need that has no need for constant validation. How do you reach this state where your self-validation is always enough no matter what the world around you is saying?

Maybe true wealth is having:

Enough money to live well.

Enough time to enjoy life.

Enough health to experience it.

Enough peace to appreciate it.

And enough love to make it meaningful.

Because ultimately, wealth may simply be this:

The ability to live life on your own terms while remaining deeply grateful for what you already have.

Richness is measured by what you spend and own, while true wealth is measured by what you are able to leave behind when you are gone.

Yourwealth is is bequeath-able. Your wealth is your legacy

And if that is true, another question naturally follows.

Because once we stop asking how much we can accumulate...

we are forced to ask something even more difficult.

How much is enough for you?