There have been quite a few in the media lately who I see have garnered much in the way of abundance. I wish them luck.

Because now they are going to have to deal with it (and hopefully wisely!)

If they don't, their abundance might slip away and then (gasp!) they might again find themselves without, which in the current culture's estimation is The Worst Thing That Could Happen.

But is it?

It depends on what you want. If you want world recognition, domination, fast company, luxury, fine dining, and all the rest then you will be miserable without those things, no doubt about it. You will pine and yearn and plot and scheme until you regain them but if you don't want and are content with far, far less, you're in the majority.

This is not to say that most in the majority wouldn't trade places with the upper crust in a New York Minute for they would if they could, having only learned to cope with being without, but there are people in the world (I'm one of them) who are perfectly fine leading lives devoid of the trappings of wealth, for they are trappings don'tcha know? Better put, they are responsibilities. (If you are one who is 'burdened' with largesse you always have the choice of what you can do about it- spend it, sit on it, or give it away).

Ultimately, I think, it all boils down to the question "What does it take to make me happy?" and the answer I’ve come up with, after wrestling with this issue for like forever, is “Not much!”. I guess in that regard I'm in the one half of one percenters.

I don't know, actually, how my answer to The Question came about. I was born with a lackadasical quality around possessions and needing to have material things didn't matter as much to me as it does to some others. That's the honest truth. I have always been confused by those others’ materialism, by their greed, by their obsession with needing things to be at certain 'socially acceptable' levels (socially conditioned levels, in my estimation).

Thus, I cannot to this day concieve of the grasping nature of an Arab prince, Russian oligarch, or typical American CEO, try as I might. As long as I'm physically safe and fed I'm pretty much there and while they, like me, have safety and food needs met, they need lots of other stuff on top of that. They have deep needs for things like recognition, running large enterprises, being in control, owning items of value above and beyond what normal people would find gratifying, and other such 'tells'. These extreme Type A's possess a high degree of restlessness and gravitate inevitably towards risk, involvement, and reward, their dispositions being similar in nature to high stakes gamblers (or addicts).

It's highly doubtful I'll ever sit at a table with these kinds of people, or even be present in the same room with them, though I do find their exploits interesting reading. Ships passing in the night, are we, our only shared experience being residence on the same planet.

I've noticed that many of this peerage feel superior to what they might refer to as ‘the rabble', thinking they are much smarter than the average Joe or Jane. Why, they must be smarter! In every category they measure life by they have a lot and the rest only a little so my life (and those of the other 'wee ones') must be miserable ones in comparison.

But that's only an assumption they have, for the one thing they can't experience and never will is the way I (for example) see the world, that capability being mine and mine alone. I'm absolutely delighted by the fact that no matter what transpires now or in the future they'll never be able to think like I do and that I will forever be independent in that regard. What a mystery I must be to them -as much of a mystery as they are to me!

Deep within that mystery lies the solution to the question such a fiscally empowered one might sometimes pose, whilst looking out the window of their limousine at me walking blithely down the street. "How can he be content living in this neighborhood?". Why I am content with it is a mystery even to myself! Even though I can point the way towards why I am content, the realization of this contentment took so long to develop I cannot tell where and when it began, nor can I offer anybody a road map of the journey that got me there. That trail is lost to me, though I will say I worked on my ‘stuff’ very, very much along the way.

My mysterious journey to a (more or less constant, gotta be real here) contentment has been, like all others, a highly personal one. Your journey might be a rapid one or a difficult, wearying slog but in the end you'll notice something very strange. Restlessness will be gone and thoughts about what else you should be doing will have departed, leaving only silence in their wake. All that will remain is what is in front of you, which could be running the country, but will probably be something much simpler.

Whatever it is, time will seem to have stopped and what you’re doing will be the most engrossing and fulfilling thing in the world.