Drowning
I was raised in a very wealthy community, Darien, Connecticut, during my Jr. High and High School years. There was a LOT of money around. One thing I noticed as I was growing up was having that money gave no immunity to family problems. Yesterday I mentioned that having great wealth can exacerbate problems and having been in that world for a while is how I know it’s true.
After those teenage years my family’s financial situation balanced out to a much more average middle class existence. I went off to college and was pretty much on my own. All the usual things a college age kid goes through, crappy apartments, ramen noodles, part time or full time jobs doing dishes or bussing tables, I did them. On top of that I got my degrees in Art, simply the BIGGEST money making degree one can get, right? uh huh.
Lowered Expectations, Higher Satisfactions
The result was getting married and raising a family with no where near the money my parents had. Luckily I didn’t obsess about wealth or having a lot of money. But I did have to learn that with my limited income and a growing family I had to be much more frugal with our resources than I initially thought. I learned a number of great lessons from having to make that adjustment.
- Doing things your self instead of hiring someone else to do it is satisfying.
- Giving away a portion of what you make (even when it’s not a lot) to causes and people you believe in and who need help is satisfying.
- Living life simply without garish and ostentatious displays of wealth and ego is satisfying.
- Knowing my family and I can make do no matter what is satisfying.
The Lake of Satisfaction
The truth is you don’t drown in money when you have a lot of it. You drown in alcohol or boredom or stress or greed or ego or promiscuity or any number of other things. And how that happens usually revolves around a desperation to keep ahold of ALL the money. That leads to an intense level of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
If you can open the gates of the dam and let go of that money that is overflowing (and more is overflowing than you probably realize) you will be better able to enjoy the lake of Satisfaction instead of drowning in it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Muhammed Ibn Zafar Al – Siqilli, 1104 – 1172, Italian Political Theorist
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“Wealth is like water. They who do not open a dam to carry off its overflow drown in it.”
So. True. Took the words right out of my brain here, sir, and wrote them so eloquently. Hats off to you!
I myself have drowned in a large sum of money at the age of 21. Well, like you said, I didn’t drown in the money. I drowned in the idea my dad was never coming back. That money was from a constant reminder he was gone and that all I had was a tool that others value highly, sitting there. I had no real plan for it and was a fan of retail therapy at the time. So I let it all out within a year. On clothes, on trips, on presents for other people. It stunted me. And now it’s gone. How free do I feel? So fucking free. I wouldn’t change a thing… I felt a lot of guilt, a lot of stress and a lot of stupid when I realised what I’d done. I copped a lot of flack for it from people who mean nothing to me and it hung around. It was just as it was though and I’ve only recalled it now this blog has prompted me, so thank you.
I think it is detrimental to humanity in this day and age, to use terms like “rich” and “wealth” when money is the object in question. I understand that it’s a shorter way to communicate that we have a lot of this societal tool. My question is why there is a term for that? Money is literally paper. We don’t have a single word for having more water than yesterday, nor do we brag about how much we happen to have, of this valuable life source. (One that our human bodies would die with out, no way around it.) It’s absurd. I personally (well, duh! haha) use rich to describe a fulfilling life and leave “wealth” out of money altogether.
AMAZING napkin. Such thought provoking stuff 🙂 This rocks.
ps. Sir Marty, I still have to scroll back up to comment – some people might be totally confused by this, but probably mores lazy. I’d recommend moving this to the bottom for more interaction 🙂
Ebony, I am confused. I scrolled all the way to the bottom to make this comment. When mean you have to scroll back up, back up to where? The bottom of the post, or above the post or? let me know because I would love to get it fixed.
There’s a country song w/the line “I’d rather be homeless than here at home with you.” Typical country lyrics except that it does have to do with money and satisfaction in life. It’s basically about a woman who gets a divorce even though she knows she’ll be financially desperate. No amount of money can make up for a miserable existence whether it has to do with love, work or any other lifestyle choice. Just look at the Kardashian’s ostentatious lifestyle to see how dysfunctional a person can be while living for the buck. Take away their money and their whole image disappears with nothing much to take its place.
Karley, that is something we see in America quite often now, and for good reasons in many cases. In the old days it wasn’t that the woman didn’t want to leave the husband, it was that she couldn’t. She couldn’t rent or buy a house, very hard to get employment or go to college to get an education, very little support from family, friends or church. Now that is all different. What is not different is they will still likely suffer a big blow financially by doing that. But many are willing to take that blow if they know they have some possibilities ahead.
The Kardashians aren’t any worse than we are, but it does prove my point that I made yesterday that you can do a hell of a lot more damage to yourself and others when you have big bucks.