Quote-A-Quote to Your Health, Wealth and Happiness by Michael E. Ruge - HTML preview

Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.

P.T. Barnum

In the western world, most of us view wealth as a commodity based upon material assets or possessions. I challenge you to consider how wealth is more than financial-- embrace the commodity of a wealthy mindset.

Whether we realize it or not, wealth weaves its way into and out of our lives on a daily basis. Certainly, wealth doesn’t always come dressed as a dollar bill. The concept of wealth materially differs from one person to another, from one culture to another, from one gender to another, from one generation to another. The currency of wealth is as varied as the people it affects. Wealth visits all of us in various guises.

I recently viewed a gallery of photos that constituted the life of a highly successful businessman. His yacht was presented in several of the photos. He asked me how big I thought his yacht was, so I began to conjure up the waterline length. Before I could respond, he said “It’s seven bathrooms big”. Without question, this was a measure of his financial wealth. It took deep commitment and applied intelligence for him to build such a vessel. For some, such a superficial barometer might seem paltry rather than wealthy; for others, estimable.

However, I remember being newly in love, rowing a leaking boat down a stream in the brilliant light of a summer’s day. The perfect picnic lunch, lovingly prepared and packed, was tucked under the seat. All was right with our world. The conversation was animated; the laughter was robust. Anticipation gently rocked the boat. That tiny craft positively bulged with abundance. And there wasn’t a bathroom in sight!

It’s wealth in relation to this state of abundance that warrants closer inspection and contemplation. Can a newborn child be wealthy? Of course.

• Wealth to a newborn child might present itself in the form of ten fingers, ten toes, healthy organs and strong lungs.
• Wealth to a landscaper could constitute a field of weeds; to a gardener, a weedless garden.
• Wealth may fall as rain when plagued with drought; where lack of rain may spell wealth to an East Indian marooned by monsoons.
• To a homeless person, wealth may reside in the warmth of a soup kitchen; to a desert tribesman in the cool of an oasis.
• For an astronomer, wealth may be that cloudless sky on the night of a lunar eclipse; for a fighter pilot, cloud cover.
• To a mother, the health and wellbeing of her kids might be her greatest wealth; for her kids, the latest trend.
• An eco-tourist will discover wealth in the natural wilderness; an urban architect in the core of a city.
• To a political prisoner, wealth is freedom of movement; to a person afflicted with arthritis, the same.

Wealth presents itself in different forms and packages – the deposits in our lives that add up to a big balance.

Some say that in order to appreciate wealth, you had to have had it and then lost it all.  I agree.  At one time,  while building my vision of wealth I had accumulated $900,000 of debt, had no assets, and $7 in my pocket.

The following quotes helped us overcome our financial adversity. Ultimately, we triumphed and recouped our losses, but not without abiding commitment and faith.

Remember to consider the other riches inherent in our world--the wealth of freedom, the wealth of expression, the wealth of experience, the wealth of awareness, the wealth of wonder. These are untold riches.