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Today's
Meditation:
The less you need to enjoy yourself and find true
pleasure in life, the closer the enjoyment and pleasure
are. I can have a million dollars in the bank, but
have few pleasures. I can have a modest income and
little money in the bank, and find great pleasure in the
little things that cost little or nothing, and then I've
found a wonderful side of life that few people stumble
upon in their journeys through this life of ours.
Do you want to be rich? Then want fewer
things. When you let go of your wants and supposed
"needs" and start to see just how satisfying the
things that already are available to you are, you start to
see the wealth that you already have, the riches that
already are at your command. Yes, I would love to be
able to travel to a foreign country every year, but there
are also some amazing places close to home that I don't
know yet. Expensive restaurants may have great food
and a special atmosphere, but so do a lot of restaurants
that don't drain your bank account nearly as much.
I think that part of the reason I agree with Henry is my
age. I'm older now than I used to be, and experience
is teaching me that the things that other people try to
cause us to want so that they can profit off of us, really
don't do anything at all to make me happier, or to make me
enjoy life any more. The more I've chased things
that I wanted, the less happy I was in the chase.
Now that I've realized just how much beauty and wonder
surround me every day, just walking out our front door and
seeing the trees and flowers and hearing the birds gives
me a great deal of enjoyment. They truly are riches.
A nice walk in the woods will lift some people's spirits
more than would a stroll on the Champs-Elysées. A
good pot of beef stew will satisfy some people more than a
five-course gourmet meal would. When I made the
decision to be a school teacher, I doomed myself to a life
without a lot of money, but that didn't mean that I
wouldn't have a life full of riches. Having realized
that the money wouldn't be there, I learned the importance
of seeing just how wealthy I already was with the things I
already had.
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