Gratitude
Ranked Choice Appreciation?
Another “choose your favorite” question, couched in sly terms: “What do you appreciate most about your life right now? Why?”
When you notice the little things alongside the big things, it becomes hard to apply ranked-choice voting to all the “best” things in life. High on my list, though, is good health and the financial ability to retire early. Not at 35. Not a billionaire. Not having won a Nobel Prize. But with the mental and physical capacity, as well as the means, to travel some and soak in more experiences and adventures in places other than my own office or living room.
There was a time, not so long ago, that I had a mental image of me, resigned to being chained to my desk — a pleasantly air-conditioned, comfortable cage doing work that I mostly enjoyed — and dying before being able to retire at any age. It wasn’t realistic. My husband laughed at me.
What it was was stress that I didn’t feel entitled to feel — after all, I wasn’t exactly breaking rocks in the hot sun! I had a good job — a fun job, for the most part. I had coworkers that I liked. I hadn’t worried in many years where the mortgage money would come from. Hadn’t had to think too hard about chicken vs. chocolate on the grocery bill. But it’s easy to watch the news and slip, slowly, inexorably, into a shortage mentality. Would it ever be enough? Would I ever be enough? I wonder if that’s why wealthy people often seem so desperate to grab more and more wealth — more than most of us could realistically imagine needing, even if we allow an irrational twinge of envy to creep in at the thought of billionaires’ “net worth.”
“Net worth.” It’s an insidious term when applied to humans, isn’t it? Another nasty little term: “Human capital.” Our worth as human beings shouldn’t be reduced to a monetary figure. But it is, first by employers, then by actuaries, then by us.
Can Money Buy Happiness?
Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make misery easier to bear.
It’s what money enables us to do that is the source of real happiness or fulfillment for most of us. It just gets tangled up in the idea that “money” or “net worth” has any value whatsoever beyond that. What would two people do with a 10,000 sq. foot home? What is even the point? The maintenance alone seems a waste of money to me. Unless, like the Kennedys, our extended family all chose to live together in one place, in which case I could see value in owning a home that large. But most of us value some autonomy and privacy, no matter how well we love our extended families. A private jet? If money were no object, I’d just as soon fly first class on someone else’s airliner. But if that’s what makes you truly, deeply happy, then more power to you. I cannot imagine a conspicuous display of disposable income really floats anyone’s boat — it seems more like a cry for psychotherapy to cure some deep-seated feeling of worthlessness.
That feeling of worthlessness, though, is a risk we all face and fight. Some of us more successfully — and happily — than others.
Time and Youth, Experience and Age
We won’t live forever. I am most grateful, at this point in my life, to have both the wisdom of experience and age and still have good health and reasonable fitness to traipse around having the experiences I want to have. I mean, let’s get real: I lack upper body strength but have never wanted to free-climb. Maybe to do one proper push-up before I die, but it’s not that big a deal.
I can’t think of many things I’m not fit enough to do that I have ever really wanted to do. I think I might have an easier time today, walking 20 miles than I did as a kid participating in annual fundraisers. I would love to learn SCUBA diving because I love swimming in the ocean. I did find the weight belt challenging. I didn’t manage to achieve equilibrium reliably. But I had one lesson in a swimming pool. I don’t doubt that I could learn and do it well.
Have you seen the movie “Thirteen Lives”? I won’t be SCUBA diving in a cave. Ever. But that’s because spelunking never appealed to me. Swimming, yes. Geology? Absolutely. Reaching out to touch the unknown scary things in a cramped, dark cave underwater? NO. Not even if it’s bone dry. Nope.
Would I swim with sharks in an aquarium? Sure! Well, if they were well-fed. Recently. Humans kill for fun; sharks kill because they’re hungry. They do this one thing really, really well.
So, everything we choose really does come down to ranked-choice voting in our minds all the time. My mom once said that she gave up on the idea of being a hot air balloon pilot “because [I] was too young to be left motherless.” I loved my mom wholeheartedly. We were close when we weren’t having the inevitable mother-daughter conflicts. But I never asked her to give up on her dream! Oh, how I resented that. I was not too young to take care of myself, I thought. I was twelve. Standing right on the cusp of puberty. Too young to be left motherless? Are you kidding me?
What did I know?
The moment I held my daughter, my firstborn, in my arms, I knew. And I laughed. I called my mom. “You didn’t give up on your dream, did you?”
“Nope.”
“You wanted to be a hot-air balloon pilot, but you wanted, even more, to live long enough to see me grow up. Maybe to meet your grandchildren.”
“Did you ever doubt that?” Well, now which of us knew nothing?
“Kind of. I thought you were being a little bit of a martyr and making it all my fault.”
“No! I was being selfish.”
Perspective makes all the difference.
This is Day #15 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge by Nancy Blackman for Refresh the Soul. Previous days’ posts:
- A Tiny Note from the Universe
- These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
- A Most Meaningful Year
- When It Rains, It Pours
- One Deadline that Doesn’t Drive Me
- This is Beauty
- There Are Worse Things I Could Do
- Life’s Little Soundtrack
- What’s in a Name?
- If Money Were No Object
- Tears of a Mother
- Prey for the Predator
- Family by Birth and Choice
- Fear, Loss, and Detachment
- Citizen of the World
- South Dakota Haiku
Holly Jahangiri is the author of Trockle ; A Puppy, Not a Guppy; and A New Leaf for Lyle. She draws inspiration from her family, from her own childhood adventures (some of which only happened in her overactive imagination), and from readers both young and young at heart. Visit her website at jahangiri.us and subscribe to her newsletter at https://hollyjahangiri.substack.com/
