We are blessed

If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.  Robert Quillen

The average human being, and the overwhelming population would fall in that category, is forever striving, aspiring and perspiring in the forlorn hope of increasing our wealth and assets. That by itself is a noble way of living life but scratch the surface and then we notice that we are in fact craving to amass, partly to keep ahead of the pack but mainly to romp around in glee that we have kept the wolves at bay. Almost all of us live in mortal fear that sooner or later our liabilities will outpace our assets and so we franticly pace ourselves to acquiring more and more. Ironically in this process what we fail to account for are the real wealth that we all posses; our health, our family, our relationships, our intellect, our creativity and above all our spirit and resilience to bounce back.

When we have to list out our wealth the real difficulty is to asses our intangible wealth. More often than not we take our personal gifts bestowed by nature for granted and do not really appreciate the value of our relationships, our friends and personal strengths seriously. In this day and age having a very strong family support is a very special blessing that we is priceless. To know that there are people (family, relatives and friends)to support you no matter what, people to stand by you when you are at grievous fault, people to motivate and cheer you on when the going gets tough and people who will frankly and honestly give you the right feedback even if it is a wee bit hurtful is a big asset in one’s life. Similarly to know that we possess the attributes like vision, intellect, discipline, insight, acumen and resilience to bounce back are gifts of our genes and fate and we need to value that immensely.

What really adds to woes is our propensity to exaggerate our woes. This is made worse by our habit of making odious comparisons with our neighbors, our peers and worst of all with those who are in completely different league than ourselves.  Obviously comparisons especially selective comparisons would always make us look a shade worse than the other but we would see it as being a terrible catastrophe. What we do further is more criminal; we compare apples with oranges as in seeing only the material wealth of others when it suits us and then seeing the domestic bliss of another when it suits us again. We rarely see the comparability factor in terms of age, economic, educational and social background etc. of the other party.

Do a reality check and we will make the realization that we are amply blessed. To begin with the reality is you are alive. This is a sobering thought when we realize that there are so many who die young. Most of us have a stable job or business, a loving and caring family, are educated and are healthy enough to be independent and plenty of friends. Finally when we evaluate our riches we just need to ask the question that is the tile of Robin Sharma’s book ‘ Who will cry when we die?’ The answer will be an eye opener.

Remember: “Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession as they torment us with their loss.” Epicurus

Try this:

1. Read the short story ‘How much land does a man need? ‘ by  Leo Tolstoy http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/ .You can also read a synopsis of the story here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Much_Land_Does_a_Man_Need%3F
2. Attempt to write down the following

• The least amount of money which we think will make us feel rich enough to retire.
• The one thing you will splurge on and the amount you will splurge on if you had enough wealth for it.
• The one charitable cause you will support and your contribution to that cause if you have enough wealth.

This post is courtesy www.actspot.com

You are also invited to visit our WEEKLY Inspirational and Motivational Blog www.poweract.blogspot.com