@ Kim – Then maybe you are rich, that’s the whole point. It’s not just about the money.

I don’t know – this isn’t much of a comment I suppose but I wanted to say hey.

And good luck with the book project.

Kim Woodbridges last blog post..(Anti) Social-Lists 3/29/09

I’ve learned not to dwell on riches, but to be grateful when my needs are met. It simplifies things in my mind. Whenever I’ve had a lot of money, it was the direct result of something horrible having happened. It causes unbearable guilt for me to imagine that I could have wished myself rich; in fact, I think I’ve gone backwards and wished myself poor! My idea of rich is having an abundance, more than I need. I usually think in terms of what would have the most value, rather than in what I want, and if I make the best of whatever I have, I increase its value.

So, my answer would be: I feel rich whenever I get more value out of something than the cost of acquiring it. And I’m happiest when I’ve added more value back into the world than I’ve taken out.

You can equally have time rich, environmentally rich etc as wealthy imho.

I also agree fully about money not ensuring happiness,. That is why we’re going into so much trouble to help people understand what will make them FEEL rich and happy. Everything else is just fluff.

However, I do think the word “wealth” is much more important and pertinent. There are various types of wealth including monetary wealth, time wealth, environmental wealth and so on. I have found that for me time wealth and environmental wealth (the country and climate you live in) are much more important than monetary wealth.

I thought Felix Denis’s book “How to be Rich” summed it up very well in the closing chapters. (Despite the name it’s actually a pretty nice summary of the balancing act that you need to perform to be “happy”.) In one of the chapters Felix, who is worth around £500 million I think (although he doesn’t actually know how rich he is), relates that his greatest pleasures in life consist of wine, poetry and feeding a stray cat. None of these activities actually requires a great deal of money!

I think one of the great myths out there is that you need money (or to be rich) to be happy. You don’t. You do need to know what makes you happy though and align yourself with that. If you want to be rich, get busy making money. If you want to be happy, do things that make you happy. But don’t confuse the two.

I guess you could argue, what is “happy”? I think people know instinctively when they are happy or not. It’s not something you measure really, it’s a state of mind. Trying to define it can be a bit tricky. As with being “rich”, being “happy” is in some ways a relative state of being. You have to define certain life goals and align yourself with those. For me having the time to pursue activities I love, but which don’t necessarily make money, have been the things that have made my life feel worth living, and as a result, I feel pretty happy – at least there’s nothing much I’d want to change about my life at the moment.

I’ll be very interested to see how the book deals with this whole topic. Can’t wait to read it!

I certainly never asked if anybody wanted to be rich and happy because I presume most people do. I agree happy is in your heart and as I get more into this, I’ll also explain why to a large extent imho, rich is too. That is why I wanted peoples own interpretation of what rich and happy means to them.

To a large extent we are exploiting the words, or to my mind and more accurately, we’re taking the words back. There have been so many get rich and even get happy quick books that we are looking to redress the balance with a measured life-long approach. An approach that actually allows people to understand their own needs rather than just setting off after lots of money that seldom makes people happier.

I hope that makes sense and thanks for commenting.

The part that messes with some people is when they get an idea of a certain goal in their head and it gets stuck there, set in stone. Even though it might sound like a good goal, like “Lose Weight,” or “Be Happy,” if it’s fixed and stationary in your mind, then it’s like a gravestone, marking where something is dead and buried. The person clings to it like if they ever let go, they’d have nothing else to hold onto. Then again, fear and death are the most reliable of goals to shoot for — how can you lose? Unfortunately, the markers reveal exactly where their deepest memories and fears are buried, which makes them vulnerable. So it would make perfect sense not to take any action or extra risk, because loss is so close at hand to begin with.

But really, asking if a person wants to be Rich and Happy, is like asking a five-year old what they want to be when they grow up — not that teacher, mommy, and ballerina aren’t worthwhile professions, they’re just predictable ones, from the mouths of little kids whose survival depends on basic mimicry. Try asking them what they want to be for Halloween and work from there. “Rich and Happy” is just adult mimic-speak for “I want to fit in, but I’d prefer to fit in where there’s some room to move around.”

@ Monica – Cool, I like that idea a lot. Thanks.