Financial Serenity

I was recently asked the following question that sent me on a bit of a “wild goose chase”.

What does abundance mean to me?

So, I decided to start with the basics.

According to Oxford dictionary, abundance means “a very large quantity of something”. This brought up another question; is it necessary to have a large quantity of anything?

And yet another question; do I have everything I need right now?

And another; what about my wants?

Very few of us have everything we want, and our wants can sometime seem all-consuming. Our perceptions become confused and exaggerated by a mass media that idolizes beautiful, larger than life people and expensive objects. It isn’t easy to be clear about what it is we need to live a simple, authentic life.

A great majority of us are craving for something more in our lives. But I ask myself, do I really think I can find the solution on the pages of a glossy magazine or on the silver screen?

It seems to me that if we are to live happy, creative, and fulfilled lives, it is necessary to distinguish between our wants and our needs. It is unfortunate that most of us cannot make the distinction. And we wonder why we have a feeling of lack?

We should make peace with the fact that we can’t have everything we want. Because it’s more important to have everything we need. When we were children, we felt content when our essential needs were met

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I decided to be bold and ask myself; what is it I really need to make me happy? I suspect the answers to this critical question will be different for each of us. For a lot of us it is a matter of money and for others it is a matter of perspective.

I ask that you look inside yourself today and have a glance at your life. Are your basic needs met? Do you have a home? Food on the table? Clothes to wear? Is there a paycheck coming in? Do you have any dreams? Do you have your health? Can you walk, talk, see the beauty around you? Listen to music that inspires your soul or makes your feet want to boogie? Do you have family and friends whom you love and who love you?

Some of us think we yearn for financial security but, in fact, we yearn for financial serenity. Some of us may look at the “ledger” of our lives and determine we are very rich.

At the end of the day, I concluded that my net worth cannot possibly be determined just by the size of my checking account balance. Can yours?

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