How often have you said to yourself, “this is as good as it gets.” You may be on vacation, sitting poolside and sipping on a cocktail or holding your newborn child in your hands. No matter what the situation may be, you’re happy and satisfied with your lot in life. At that moment, you truly feel like there’s no way it could ever get better.
Funny enough, it almost always does.
With age comes wisdom but also experiences. I can point to twenty or thirty experiences in my life where I thought it could never get better. The moments were perfect and none of them had anything to do with spending or making money. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve stayed in beautiful hotels and spent more money than I ever thought possible on one vacation or another. I remember almost none of it.
The memories that matter are spent with the people you respect and care for most in life. Most likely, these special memories don’t happen while you’re stuck at work, missing family and friends. We have to work in order to pay our bills, retire comfortably and afford the things we need. All of this is true, but it’s equally true we should work hard to avoid having work take over our lives.
Personally, I feel bad for the people who have everything they’ve ever wanted. For them, it will likely never be better than when they were wanting all of the things they didn’t have. Once all of those things are received, what’s left? If you don’t replace the material with the immaterial, true happiness will be hard to come by.
I was watching a movie recently where the father went to go visit his successful daughter in Chicago. The house she lived in was a 10K square foot contemporary home in Chicago. I haven’t researched how much a house like this would cost, but it would have to be millions of dollars. In other words, less than 0.5% of our American population would be able to afford it. Yet, this movie presented the situation and house itself as though it was normal.
Everyone can afford something so extravagant, right?
Situations like this provide a warped sense of what is and isn’t success. Using the movie as an example, having a gigantic house and luxury cars certainly makes you a financial success. Although this makes life easier in many ways, Is it what truly matters? It’s entirely possible a single mother working three jobs may be a better parent than a set of parents providing their children all the luxuries money can buy.
As another example, there’s a set of Coach commercials showing twenty something year old girls giggling and riding bikes, all while enjoying their luxurious handbags. The commercials are both ridiculous and annoying. Why does a twenty year old need a Coach purse? Remove the bags and you’re left with a set of girlfriends laughing, riding bikes and having a good time. The focus should be on this instead of the bag itself. No doubt the advertising firm hired by Coach would disagree.
Experiences make life worth living. Having more money to enjoy them is helpful but shouldn’t be used to replace the simple joys of sharing time with those you love.
Hopefully you had a great time with friends and family this Thanksgiving. No doubt it was as good as it gets.
Until next year, of course.
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