It’s just another pressure to put yourself under. We are all going to die at some time or another and what can you possibly take with you when you do?
While the train crash was actually happening I remember thinking ‘it hasn’t been worth it’. I was successful, had money, a nice home, a posh car, I went on expensive holidays, I owned my own company and probably behaved as many of my peer group did; proud, cold, aloof, forever chasing more. I was literally living and breathing work in order to make money and the pressure to perform was forever present – gosh it was tiring!
None of it was of any worth or use to me at that very moment I believed I was going to die.
My perspective on wealth changed dramatically.
It happened in that very split second though it took some deep and honest thinking about for a time during my recovery. Don’t get me wrong – I still like nice things, I like my home looking nice, I wear nice clothes and I still enjoy holidays but now it is very much on the basis of if and when I can afford it. If I can’t then that’s just the way it is. I don’t waste any time on wishing it were otherwise or trying to strive for it. Material wealth is just not that important to me as it was before.
What is of huge importance to me now is how I exist and what I will leave behind when I am gone. I try to be kind, thoughtful, helpful, trusting and warm. Since I’ve changed my focus in this way it has brought me into contact with so many like minded and lovely people from all over the world which is the only ‘bonus’ I now need and gets my adrenaline pumping just as a large fat fee used to. My relationships with people are far deeper and more meaningful than before and that makes me now feel very ‘rich’ in a much better way.
Even if, as modern life has a habit of forcing on us, I find myself beginning to think along the old lines I now imagine myself at the point of death, trying to think what my last thoughts might be. If they were to be a knowledge that I had touched people’s lives in a positive way, that I would be thought of fondly and warmly and would be missed then that, to me is almost a form of immortality and I would then consider my life as having ‘been worth it’.
Rather than wanting what you don’t have appreciate what you do. Love and be loved by those around you and make your time on this planet count in a positive way.