I don’t have a lot of money, but I consider myself wealthy.
I have enough money to pay for food, rent, and some entertainment.
I don’t have a car, nor a big fancy house, but I do have time to walk up and down the mountain, take a coffee with my friends in the middle of the day, and travel during the shoulder season when traveling is less expensive and destinations are less crowded.
From my window, I can see people going to work. I am sure that many of them have more money than me, but they have to sell 8 hours of their lives to their employers every day.
I do sell my time as well. I work as an event photographer in Montreal and as a website designer, but I work just enough to pay my bills and put a bit of savings aside.
I don’t work to buy physical things like a car, electronic gadgets, or fashionable clothes. For me, the most precious thing I can buy with my money is leisure time.
Would I work a few extra hours to pay for a car or some fashionable thing? No.
People give different values to their money. Some value things, and some value time and independence. Which one of those two are you?
Something else that’s important to me is to have a certain amount of money set aside for emergencies. We don’t know when the next pandemic will come. What I value the most is having as much independence and autonomy, controlling my time, and doing what I want to do, when I want to do it, with whom I want to do it with, for as long as I want to do it for. That is true wealth to me.
Conversely, there are some other people who get value out of life from their possessions. That is a difficult way be happy because there is always someone who will have a nicer object than you, where are time. Every one have just 24 hours during the day and a walk up the mountain or a coffee date with someone you love is just as nice whether you have lots of money or not.
Other Personal Development Posts