One of my fraternity brothers, Felix, sent me the following on a Facebook message recently that he felt really would be a great blog topic for me. I agree, as after reading it, it left me pondering the message behind it for a good long while…
“My wife grew up thinking that having water/ice dispensers in the fridge door was a life goal. I grew up thinking if you had a basketball hop with a clear/plexiglass backboard, you were rich. What are some things you thought were indicators of wealth when you were a kid?”
As a kid, having Air Jordan sneakers was probably the biggest thing I thought indicated you were wealthy, given their $120 price tag back then. A close second to that would have been someone who had a full-size video game in their home, just like one you’d see in an arcade back in those days. To round out the trifecta of what I thought represented wealth as a kid, was anyone who had cable in their home, especially HBO. As a kid, I had none of these things and I coveted each of them in those who had them. I longed and longed and longed to have what I didn’t and one day, when the tide turned, when money came into my life, I was able to obtain those things, and guess what, none of them mattered in the end. I’ve come to learn that acquiring what most think represents wealth doesn’t ultimately matter. Why? Because it doesn’t bring ever-lasting happiness.
Having the most amazing car doesn’t bring ever-lasting happiness. I’ve had one and all it brought was a temporary and quickly fleeting sense of happiness. Having a humongous home in an exotic locale doesn’t bring true happiness either. I’ve had that too and all it brought me was the same, a temporary and quickly fleeting sense of happiness. This list is endless of the things that I thought at varying points in my life represented indicators of wealth and were initially life goals of mine. Home theater systems, video game consoles, vacations to faraway places, the latest phone with all those gadgets built into it, state of the art computers, blah, blah, blah, when I’ve had them, I was happy for a moment, until I wasn’t. In those first moments of having them, I always felt I had finally arrived. I finally had what my mind thought represented being rich. Having acquired something most others didn’t, initially made me feel good. And for those brief moments, I believed I had finally become someone in a world that was always so easy for me to feel like I was nobody.
Nowadays, I don’t have any of those things that most people in this country would associate to having richness and wealth. Ironically though, those who live in third world countries would probably say otherwise, as living in the humble home I do with running water and a hot shower is one that represents having wealth to many of them. But, chasing whatever one associates to wealth that can be acquired on this planet, regardless of whatever it is, eventually becomes a futile effort. If one’s path is to seek something that another has that they label in their own minds as having richness, it ultimately leads down a path that goes nowhere, where happiness diminishes more and more, until one is constantly seeking one shiny thing after another they believe represents wealth.
This is why I seek a different type of richness now, a richness in spirit and in closeness to Source, or God if you may. Having that type of richness is the only thing that’s ever left me feeling complete in a world that often feels so dam incomplete. It’s a joy like no other. Label it however you will, the joy I’ve felt from God when it’s come has been better than anything, any shiny wealthy and rich thing has ever given me. This is why I struggle so much now because I haven’t felt that in some time no matter how hard I’ve sought after it, which has left me teeter-tottering on the edge of going back down that endless quest of seeking after some worldly wealthy and rich thing all over again. While it may not be an ice/water dispenser, or a clear/plexiglass hoop either, whatever it is, I know there will always be something beyond each thing I associate to wealth, that my ego will want to get, all to keep proving to itself that I must be somebody in this world.
But you know when I’ll really know when I’ve finally arrived in the state I believe I’m meant to be in, a state that I believe represents a true wealth and richness? When I awake one morning and feel complete just being me, just feeling that deep love for God and for just being alive taking one breath after another, as experiencing that feeling is a joy like no other…a joy that I never found on my endless quest to acquire one thing after another that I kept associating to having richness and wealth…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
