Being Rich

"One is not rich by what one owns, but more by what one is able to do without with dignity."

-- Immanuel Kant

Look at all the stuff you've got! Way too much stuff, I'm guessing. Stuff you haven't used for years, stuff you don't know why you bought in the first place, stuff you've outgrown, stuff that is worn out, stuff that you don't even like but for some crazy reason still have laying around. (No, I don't mean your husband!).

What can you "do without with dignity?" Damn near everything! I didn't own a microwave until just about a year ago when I sorted of "inherited" one because it came with an office that I rented. People would say to me all the time "How can you live without a microwave?" As if they were saying "How can you live without a face?" or "How can you live without God in your life?" It was easy. In fact, so easy that I recently gave the microwave to somebody else who wanted it for their office. I suspect that they were living fine without it, too, but now there's one less thing that I have to cart around. So, I live without a microwave, with dignity, and make better popcorn with my good old hot air popper.

Too much stuff does not create richness but obscures it. It's hard to experience the richness of life itself when you're always busy learning how to program a new remote, or becoming the Wii bowling champ, or suffering from Crackberry Thumb.

The same is true of experience. You don't need to experience every goddam place, every goddam activity there is on the face of the Earth in order to be rich. It's the consciousness you bring to the experience, more than the external content of the experience, that determines the richness of your life. You can be richer in your own hometown than at the Pyramids of Giza, not to mention a helluva lot richer at the local swimming hole than at Caesar's Palace in Vegas.

So today, simplify. Pare down. Do without. Give stuff away. Experience life's richness. Experience the wealth and dignity that resides right within your own soul. Stuff is just stuff. Only consciousness is real. May you always be conscious of the richness within you and around you!