A friend of mine is super-wealthy. And he has created all his wealth in the last decade or so through smart investing.
But when I met him recently, he seemed quite dissatisfied with his life. He said, “If I look at my last 5 years, what did I do? There is nothing I have to show for it.”
Mind you – in the last 5 years, the increase in his stock value would have been more than the wealth most of us will ever have. But that did not make his life feel less empty!
What bothered him was that he had not used his time well – he did not pursue things he found meaningful and enjoyable.
Most of us are busy seeking financial security and wealth. And that is the right thing to do. But that pursuit should not numb you from asking the real question – when I look back at my day every evening, does it feel well spent?
If the answer is often no, you need to change something because more money won’t change it.
We can’t hide from this question forever. Nor can we philosophize it away as an unanswerable question about the ‘meaning of life.’
Each day is an opportunity to shape one day of our life.
And how we spend each day becomes our whole life. That is all there is to it – nothing more.
– Rajan