How To Be Rich Before You Get Rich
While in college, during the early 1970′s, I took a Chinese philosophy class. One of the texts for that class was Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, a spiritual book consisting of 81 verses that was written 2500 years ago. The Tao Te Ching did not make much of an impression on me in those days. The writing was beautiful, but I was filled with the hubris of youth and had not yet lived enough to appreciate the wisdom contained in those simple verses. I still have that copy of the Tao Te Ching in my library. The spiritual journey I commenced over eight years ago has recently brought me back to Lao-tzu’s 81 verses.
One line from the 33rd verse speaks powerfully, I believe, to those who seek true prosperity in our consumption-driven culture: “If you realize you have enough, you are truly rich.”
The end of wanting
This revelation has profound implications for personal finance, because having enough is the end of wanting. Wanting is what drives people to spend all they have and more, to get into debt, and to make risky investments. Wanting causes resentment, anger, frustration, envy, and all manner of pain and suffering. Wanting makes it difficult to save money.
Having enough opens the door to true prosperity
When a person realizes he has enough, he has everything he needs. The wanting stops. Life is no longer centered around things and the money required to buy them. The need to finance with debt vanishes. The drive to consume and acquire is replaced with gratitude and contentment. He is rich in the things that ultimately count, the things of the spirit. Paradoxically, this frees him to pursue financial independence. Absent the obsession to consume, it is easy to save money. Conservative investments that preserve capital and produce a modest, guaranteed return are sufficient. There is patience to let assets grow, little by little.
Our experience with the realization that we had enough
Rosa and I have seen this play out in our lives. Early on, we realized we had enough. Our love for each other and the modest, but comfortable, standard of living we established not long after we married was all that we needed. Over the years, we consistently earned far more income than was necessary to sustain our standard of living, so it was relatively easy to save. Although we saved a high percentage of our incomes, we never felt it a sacrifice to do so, or that having saved so much, we had deprived ourselves. We had all that we needed and had quit wanting.
The realization that you have enough is a state of mind you can acquire at any time, regardless of your economic circumstances. All it takes is the recognition that there is more to life and living than the material world of consumption and that everything you really need can be found within you.
K.C. Knouse is the author of True Prosperity: Your Guide to a Cash-Based Lifestyle, Double-Dome Publications, 224 pages
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