Recently, my aunt was relaying a conversation that she’d had with a running buddy of hers. Her friend was talking about her friend who makes over $40 million per year, and the running buddy said, “And I struggle with my 3 million.”
Of course, I was pretty incredulous when I heard that. How could she possibly complain (even laughingly) about earning $3 million dollars per year? How could that be any sort of hardship? Wouldn’t you have everything that you’d ever wanted if you were making that kind of money?
But would we?
Research tells us that lottery winners aren’t any happier than the rest of us. And the research also shows, too, that once basic needs have been met (shelter, food, security), then raising our income level doesn’t raise our happiness level. (Happiness levels plateau at a certain point.)
Yeah, we get it: money doesn’t buy happiness.
So does that mean that the opposite might be true, then…that aspiring to have more money will make us unhappy? That we shouldn’t want to earn more, because, after all, it’s not going to make us happy, anyway? We should just be content with what we have. Take our cold pizza and like it.
Is this what your dreams are made of?
Um, no, of course not. If you want your life to change, if there are things that you think that $3 million dollars could do for you, if you aren’t entirely happy with everything in your life, then let’s go shake some shit up!
What would 3 million do for you?
If an extra million or two might really change your life, then what, specifically, would you change? What would you do differently? What experiences would you want, which chores would you outsource, which toys would you buy? Here’s mine to get you thinking:
- healthy, Paleo meals delivered to my house every day, or perhaps occasionally cooked for me in the home.
- daily maid service.
- one of those private jet sharing services in order to fly to Europe a few times a year. (And my husband could quit his job so that he could go with us on these jaunts.)
- a trip to Mongolia to study with shamans for a few months. (Not sure about the husband on this part. Or kids, for that matter. But it’s on the list.)
- a private tutor for Spanish would come to the house for me and my kids so that we could all speak Spanish.
- my dream home
Not all or nothing:
But why am I waiting for any of that? Maybe not all of it is realistic just yet, but can I pull pieces of that into my life? I could take Spanish classes at the local church. I could go on one trip to Europe (flying cattle class). I could have one meal per week delivered. I could redo the bathroom as I would like it in my dream house. I could go find some Mongolians here in Atlanta (“Um, hi, will you be my Mongolian friend?).
We can always take small pieces of our dreams and start incorporating them into our lives. We don’t have to wait until that one big thing materializes – we can explore a volunteer opportunity with the type of work we really want to be doing, we can spend an hour per week to start writing that book, we can take a class, or a workshop, or even just explore that interest on the internet.
It’s kind of a common theme on this blog by now, and so you probably know where I’m going, but we can’t put our happiness out on some future point. We can’t wait until we earn three million dollars in order to start living the life we want. We can’t wait until everything looks perfect at home before we start to take steps towards our dreams.
So what can you do right now, today, to move towards those things that you really want in your life?
You must be logged in to post a comment.