Family Finance Blog

As a baby shower gift, someone bought us the book The Table Where Rich People Sit. It’s a wonderful book that starts off with a little girl asking why her family is poor and why her parents don’t work harder to be rich. They live out in the desert in a small house, and they don’t have money for new clothes, vacations, and all the other things she sees some of her friends having. The family proceeds to have a conversation about how rich they are. How much it is worth to work outdoors, to see coyotes in the evening and watch the sun set over the desert. How much it is worth to be able to be home with their children more and to do frequent family events. It’s a great story about how rich is not the same as wealthy.

The story reminds me that there are two different paths that I am pursuing in life. The most important of the two is to be rich. To take what I have in life and be grateful for it. To make sure that I spend time on the things that truly bring me joy and will make my life one filled with wonderful memories. To wake up every morning and kiss my wife and tell her I love her. To wiggle the toes of my baby when he/she comes and coo and smile with her.

I am also working towards being wealthy. Not super wealthy, but enough that I have more time to do the things that make me rich. I want more time to spend with my wife and kids and family. To travel and go camping in new places. But in that pursuit of wealth, I have to remember that I am rich the whole time, and to act like someone who is rich. If I sacrifice riches for wealth, then I don’t think that my life will be as meaningful.

No matter how much money I accumulate, if I am not happy with my life now, exactly how it is and exactly how it isn’t, I will never be happy with my life in the future. There will always be something missing, something more to obtain. And so while much of this blog is about my search for wealth, I do keep it in my head that my life is primarily a search for riches.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 8:17 am and is filed under Goals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.