…This is the question we’ve been discussing this week at the martial arts school I teach at.
Some of the student answers we received ranged from, “Someone who has a lot of money” to “Someone who has a lot of kindness” to “Someone who has a lot of friends” to “Someone who has a big house and fancy car” to “Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos” etc.
And after discussing those answers, the answer we offered for the students to reflect on was, “Someone who appreciates all they have.”
…If your mind immediately goes to rich by comparison, then you’ll always be poor.
There will always be someone out there who has more money, more luxury items, more connections, more resources, more privileges, etc. Always.
And this is the trap so many of us fall into when we equate richness to being about what we have in comparison to.
Richness, I’d encourage you to consider, has nothing to do with comparison.
Richness has everything to do with perspective. It’s a feeling that can be cultivated—not a title earned from a number of zeros.
And once we realize this and can start actively cultivating that feeling of richness in our lives via appreciation, gratitude, mindfulness—suddenly the game we’re playing changes.
…Suddenly we get to step off the hamster wheel we’ve been trained to run on (the one that only speeds up and gets harder the harder we speed up and run)—and get to start soaking it all in instead. With each step… each conversation… each touch… each smile… each exchange along the way.
P.s. I also published: 20 Heavy Michelle Zauner Quotes from Crying In H Mart on Cancer and Grief