What is your Rich Life?
“You need to go to school, get good grades, get into college, and get a good job.”
Now you’re fresh into the working world and its daily standups, weekly one-on-ones, and ever-changing and ever-stretching goals.
Welcome to the rat race.
Here’s a secret, this is never going to change. I will never forget the moment I had this realization.
It was early a Monday morning. I’d spent yet another weekend doing nothing truly productive, but thinking I deserved it for all the hard work I was doing at my job. I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling, and thought:
“I cannot do this for the next 40 years.”
Talked to some of my older family members and got hit with “You’re so young, you haven’t seen anything yet” or “You haven’t paid your dues or put in any real years to be complaining”. As if grinding your way through week after week at a job you don’t necessarily hate but definitely only tolerate is a badge of honor.
What is your rich life?
The first time I ever heard this question was my introduction to Ramit Sethi and his book “I will teach you to be rich”. And, I’ll admit when I heard the title of the book, I thought it was another one of these “get rich quick” books, but it’s not. And in fact, Ramit’s question was very revealing because I realized… I couldn’t answer it. I had a vague idea of what I thought I wanted in a rich life, but I couldn’t explain it, and in fact, I realized that the only thing that I was truly looking forward to was the weekend.
Ultimately, this question is about what you value. If you know what you value, then you can make priorities in your life. I value the experience of travel. I am at my happiest when I get on a plane and head to a country or city that I’ve never been to. This helps me to prioritize. I don’t waste money on nonsense that doesn’t benefit or help me travel more.
We have such potential, but most of us are so ground down by our 9-5 lives that when the weekend comes along, all we want to do is lay around, watch football, and hang out with friends. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying your weekend, but if you’re not currently living your best life, something’s got to change; let’s talk about how to do that.
Experience More.
Many people won’t know what they want in a rich life. In fact, they’ll say something like: “I’m not that interesting.”
I absolutely loathe this statement.
You’re the only YOU that exists on this planet. You ARE interesting. What most people are trying to get across when they say this is that they’ve not experienced enough to know what they like or dislike. Easy fix…go out and experience more things.
I love burgers, no that wasn’t just a random bout of key smashing. I’m going somewhere with this…hang in there.
When I lived in Atlanta, I googled the top 10 burger spots in the metro area, and then, over the course of a summer, I went to try them all out. When I told some friends that I was doing it, they wanted to join in. Now I have all these memories of me and my friends trying out some tasty burgers and even some cool food challenges that we participated in.
If you want an extraordinary life, you have to seek one out. It won’t just fall into your lap. I think that’s the part that school fails to teach us. They’re quick to tell us to get good grades so that you can get a good job, but to whose benefit?
Society needs us to work; that’s how the economy will continue to run, but what do YOU want? What do you value?
Determine Your Values.
As you go out and experience more, you’ll soon realize and gain ideas on what you truly value. Do you love hiking and want to be able to spend more of your time heading out on the trails? Is fishing life, and you want to live on a lake so that you can fish all you want? Or maybe you want to be able to go and live where your ancestors are from and that means traveling to small towns tucked in between gorgeous mountains and valleys.
Once you figure this part out, then ruthlessly cut out anything that doesn’t align with your values. Life’s too short to straddle the fence, so jump in with both feet. When you have a firm idea of what you value, it makes prioritizing simpler.
All you have to do is ask yourself, “Does this align with my value? Does this move me closer or away from my goals?”
If you’re making it through the week, simply waiting for Friday, then that needs to change. Go out there and take ahold of the life you truly want to live.
