The more we have, the less we appreciate

This post started as a comment in response to Colin Wright's post on Your Money or Your Life. The comment grew long enough that I decided to turn my response into this post.

There are two things that cannot be bought with money: Time and Happiness.

Sure, you might be able to "buy" someone's time, but you cannot buy back time that has already been spent! Therefore time is an invaluable resource. Likewise, happiness cannot be bought. You can buy things that you think will make you happy, but the happiness itself will always come from somewhere inside. You really don't need anything external to obtain it!

I find it amazing how many people go through their entire lives thinking that more money equals more happiness. They get stressed and unhappy due to the absence of money and naturally they assume having more of it will reverse the effect. In reality, what's making them unhappy are the choices they've made; the little luxuries they've decided are absolutely necessary to live their life (cable TV, cars, expensive foods, tobacco, alcohol, big house, movies, etc.).

All of those things provide a very temporary and unsustainable happiness. As a result, their life becomes a snowballing roller coaster of wanting more and more. The more they want, the more money they convince themselves they need. The more money they need, the more stressed out and unhappy they become. Where does it end? Sadly, for most people it ends with death.

I come from a middle class family. While my perspective is not the same as someone from a lower class family, I can see that the same patterns emerge from one class to the next. The things everyone truly cares about are pretty much the same. One persons' poor, is another persons' rich. The family we're born into often defines the living standard by which we judge and perceive the world around us. But how different is the rich person from the poor person? Do they experience a different kind of happiness? A different kind of sadness? A different kind of love? How about hunger? Do rich and poor people get different feelings from laughter?

I speak as a single guy, with very few true responsibilities. I have no kids to take care of or family that needs to be looked after. I understand that my perspective and ideas may not apply to other situations. Nevertheless, there are many very happy families living with far less than the average family in the United States. Do they experience a lower quality happiness? When their kids laugh and play together, do they experience a lower quality joy? True happiness isn't something that can be bought with money.

We're all human. If we really want to be happy we need to look deep inside ourselves for happiness. It's there. Everyone has it. No one person has less happiness-making-capacity than the next. It's really tough to forget that all the material stuff around us, regardless of how much importance we place on it, really has nothing to do with our true happiness. That's a tough pill to swallow when some of us work day and night to afford the stuff.

So what better way to find the true source of happiness than to strip yourself of all things material? I grew up in a relatively rural area, a small town in New Hampshire with a forest and a lake for a backyard. I was home schooled and spent most of my childhood outside exploring nature. When friends would visit for the first time, their impression would always be one of amazement. I never understood that. At least not until I moved away and lived in the city for two years. When I visited my parents on the weekends, I started to feel something I never felt before. Visiting my parents house, the very place I grew up, started to feel like going on vacation! I felt so much appreciation for the place.

That experience made me realize how the little things we take for granted can spoil our entire life. Have you ever come back from a camping trip and felt a little more grateful for having a shower? How about when the power comes back on after being out for more than a day? We should feel that way every minute of every day for the life we have. For working legs, eyes, hands, ears, and mouth. We should be grateful for every second that passes; for each beat of our heart, and each breath we take.

Take a deep breath of air right now. Close your eyes and fill your chest with life-giving air. Appreciate it a little more than you did the previous breath. Do it right now. I'll wait.

Didn't that feel good? You take an average of 20,000 of those every single day. That's a lot to be grateful for!

I've decided to get rid of nearly all my material possessions because I know it will make me feel more grateful. I know it will enable me to see more clearly. We humans (yes, even modern ones) don't need very much to survive. Food and shelter. That's it. Most of us are fortunate enough to have working feet to help us travel, yet so few of us use them for real commuting. What about money? When we remove all modern-day comforts and really drill down to the bare necessities, we don't need very much of that either. Of course how much money will differ depending on where we're living, but most of us live way above necessity.

Find something you own that you haven't used in over a month. Now find someone that you can give it to. Don't worry about how much it cost you or why you originally bought it. You haven't used it in over a month and you most likely won't use it for the foreseeable future. Just find something and give it away. By giving it away you'll not only build good karma, you'll also feel a little more appreciative of all the stuff you currently have.

The more we have, the less we appreciate. The less we have, the more we appreciate. Do you want to appreciate more or less of life?

What is the Purpose of an Ending?

Everything has an ending, doesn't it? When we're talking about life and relationships, the ending often brings out many emotions. Opposite to the ending, the start and beginning are often associated with joy and happiness. Other endings and beginnings, however, are often not so defined.

When you're hungry, you feel a sense of gratification the minute you start eating. When you're on an airplane starting a 5-day vacation to a tropical island, you're happy and relaxed knowing the next few days will be enjoyable. When a baby is born, happiness is associated with the event. As the child grows up, all he is concerned with is how he will enjoy that day.

But when you finish eating and you're full, you quickly forget the gratification you felt minutes earlier. Your return trip home on the airplane is filled with only memories of the enjoyment you experienced, as you slowly adjust back into the thinking mode of daily life that you associate with grunt work. When the baby grows up, has kids and grand-kids of his own, he will lie on his deathbed where there is no happiness to be found. As the child grew older, he found less and less happiness from life. Continue reading

Foundations

This article was written when I was 15 years old and was originally published in a bi-monthly newsletter that my dad put together called The Light of Wisdom. I'm republishing the article here on my blog for archival purposes.

Every thing that is built needs a foundation. Houses, factories, buildings, skyscrapers, roads, highways, and even humans! When we are born, it is like we are just starting to dig into the soil where we want to build our house. Then as we grow up, the things we learn and the thoughts we think, are like adding to the house's structure. Depending on how we were brought up and what materials we used, our house will be made of bricks, and stay upright even if problems arise, or we will have a house made of cards, which could fall apart with just the smallest problem. So, as you see, how we grow up tells us what our house will be like in the future.

Well now you might say to yourself, "Well, I was not raised properly, so now I am not going to be able to have a good life. My foundation is not good, and now it's too late." Well, if you say that, then you are VERY wrong! Can you rebuild a house's foundation??? Yes, you can. Just start over again! That's right, by rebuilding your life's house, you can create a new foundation. It doesn't matter what age you are. In fact, rebuilding your foundation is so fast and simple, that it can be done every SECOND! If you could rebuild the foundation of a house every second, do you think it would ever get worn down??? No, it won't. But the reason you can't do that, as you know, is because it takes time and money. But to rebuild the foundation of your life can be done every second. And our time is VERY limited.

Think in minutes for a second. Not years, or months, or weeks, or even days or hours. Think in minutes. How many minutes do you have left??? Now you may be realizing that your time is so limited that there is not enough of it to do everything you want to accomplish in life. That's right. There isn't. That's why you have to pick out the things that you NEED to do, and not WANT to do. If you spend all your life looking for something outside of yourself to make you happy, then it's like looking for a blue sky on the ground. You will never find it.

Everything that you need in life came with this package called life. It has five tools with which we work. They are our five senses. If we misuse these tools, then we will mess up life's complex structure and we won't know how to put it back in order.

So, if we start building a new foundation right NOW, then we can become better than the last minute. But only you can do it. Can someone eat for you? No. Of course not! In the same way, you have to change. Don't worry if people don't listen to you when you try to tell them to change for the better. Remember, you can't change them. They have to change. By trying to change them, you are using those minutes doing something which is NOT helping you (or anyone). So, if you want people to listen to you, tell them using your own example. If they follow you, then they will change. If they don't, then you can't help them.

What should you do to build up your foundation of life? Well, you could start by just being happy ALL the time. And if a problem comes in your way, act like the water, go AROUND it. Don't stop your whole life just because of a little problem. Next, you could always help people who need help. Give instead of take. Use your words carefully. If you speak all the time, then your words don't have much affect. But if you only talked when needed, people would want to hear what you are going to say.

So building a strong foundation for your life is the first thing you need to do. Then, add GOOD and strong things to it, and build it up. But, remember not to put even ONE bad thing in it. For example, if you have a big garden of flowers, and you put just one seed of a thorn bush, the thorn bush will over grow the flowers and be very hard to get rid of. Even though the flower bed might be many thousands of times bigger than the thorn seed, it will soon grow and destroy the beautiful garden. So, in the same way, don't put any bad things in the structure of your house. If you do, it may one day fall down on you! So that is my good advise to you. Please reread this article if you didn't understand it fully, and remember, it is up to you to change your life!