What Really Matters
Here at PeakProsperity.com, we devote a lot of focus to building wealth and other forms of “capital“. This website has hosted thousands of discussions over the years on how to preserve and increase wealth.
But what’s it all for?
Every so often, it’s useful to pull waay back to look at the big picture. To re-examine the Why? underlying our plans and aspirations.
Most of us don’t do this very often. We usually only do so after life throws us a curve ball — often some form of tragedy or crisis — that suddenly forces us to re-evaluate everything we may have taken for granted beforehand.
I’ve certainly been guilty of some of this complacency. I think Chris would admit to a little, as well. But sadly, we’ve both recently experienced traumatic events that have forced a renewed appreciation of what truly matters in life.
For me, my (very personal and highly subjective) conclusion is that it pretty much boils down to just two things:
- living with meaning, and
- valued relationships
Everything else — money, knowledge, possessions, skills, experiences…even our beliefs and actions — are means to achieve those two goals.
Living with meaning is a huge topic. One we’ve addressed in parts occasionally here at PP.com and which I expect we’ll tackle more ambitiously in the future. But for now, I just want to point out that it’s rooted within the individual. Each of us has to identify what “meaning” is for ourselves, and then determine how best to pursue it in our lives. (Much easier said than done, of course).
Valued relationships, on the other hand, are by definition interpersonal. As our podcast with Pulitzer prize-winning author Sebastian Junger explored, humans are evolutionarily hard-wired to co-exist in community with others. Deriving self-worth from our relationships is simply a fundamental feature of the human species. And the theme of the remainder of this article.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
