All of us crave joy and success, longevity and significance. Is there a formula to follow?
I’m a Star Trek mega fan... and proud of it. I began watching the original 1960s series, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, with my mother in the early 1970s when Malaysians enjoyed one black-and-white TV channel.
It was a simpler, happier time when those adventures on the Starship Enterprise NCC1701 were the weekly entertainment highlight for my remarkable mother and me. In the series, the half Vulcan, half human Mr Spock would sometimes give the now unmistakable Vulcan three-pronged hand greeting as he said, “Live long and prosper.”
Regular readers of this column know that my mother passed away last year, 17 days after suffering a multifocal stroke. She was 94 years, 2 months and 3 weeks old. Janaki Bai Devadason lived long. Also, from my perspective, my mother prospered. Prosperity is tied to well-being; neither attribute necessitates swimming in cash. Other factors are of greater importance.
That’s why I say with confidence that my mother prospered even though she was never financially wealthy; never owned her own car or home; and, until my older sister Viji and I started working and earning money, our mother depended exclusively on her salary as an English teacher and later, on her modest Malaysian government pension for our small family’s survival. Personal biases aside, I believe my mother prospered because she lived a life replete with meaning, learning and compassion.
She supported causes she believed in; she loved the English language, built an impressive home library, and inculcated a passion within Viji and me for English, reading, and — predictably — reading in English; and she extended consistent emotional and material help to others in need.
Right thinking people know that money is not the most important thing in life. If stacked against other vital elements of human existence like love, wisdom, health, the ability to sleep, fitness, respect and culture, the relative importance of money in and of itself fades from view.
Yet practical individuals also realise money is a magnifier or lever that enlarges or multiplies our capacity to nurture other more important life elements. And if you didn’t know it, money is neutral. In and of itself, money is neither good nor bad.
If a lot of money is given to an evil person, it will just empower him or her to carry out more evil. Imagine a rich Hitler!
LESSON LEARNT
Conversely, loads of money in the hands of a good person like Mother Teresa (or, say, you) can extend that individual’s reach to make the world better. Consider, for example, the projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org), which include the goals of scrubbing our planet clean of the scourges of malaria and polio!
I also know from watching my late mother’s life, that at the other end of the wealth spectrum even tiny targeted sums of money wielded by a kind, wise person can leave a lasting legacy of love. To survive on Earth, we all need some money. But many people manage their money badly; some do a so-so job; while relatively few manage it well.
Thankfully, financial planning principles such as exercising delayed gratification, saving consistently, building an emergency buffer fund, buying appropriate insurance coverage, investing intelligently, giving generously, and distributing our wealth effectively after we pass on, can help all three groups of adults improve or optimise what they do with their finite lifetime inflow of cash.
Like fictional Vulcans, we real humans crave to live long and prosper. Living long involves our longevity goals. Prospering, the way I see it, is to live meaningfully and deeply. Like you, my hope is to live long and deep.
WE ALL HAVE CHOICES
It is my conviction that ultimately God decides how long we live. Nonetheless, He has placed us within a probabilistic universe, as revealed by quantum physics. Therefore, allocating some of our money to raise our odds of not dying prematurely is good sense. We should spend some money on health insurance; regular medical checks; appropriate vitamins, minerals and supplements; healthy food; a car with great brakes and safe airbags; and exercise equipment and facilities (that must be used to be of use). All that should, statistically speaking, extend our lives.
Perhaps more importantly though, channelling our passion and money into projects that help others in this generation and the generations to come will deepen our ‘significance footprint’. We get one shot at living well; we should commit to managing our money in incrementally better ways so our lives are meaningful and our legacies awesome.
Living long and living deep can’t happen accidentally. It requires us living intentionally by setting personal goals with clarity and following through on them with focus and concentration. Brian Tracy explains it this way in his book Bull’s-Eye:
“You must become absolutely clear about who you are and what you want. You must focus on your most important goals and activities. And finally, you must concentrate single-mindedly until you have completed your tasks and achieved your goals.”
We all have the choice to live well or to live badly. No one proactively chooses to fail. Sadly though, too many people end up by default living lives of quiet desperation that lack direction, purpose and aspiration. I don’t think you’re one of them.
Live long and prosper.
© 2017 Rajen Devadason
Read his free articles at www.FreeCoolArticles.com. Connect on rajen@rajenDevadason.com, www.linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, and Twitter @RajenDevadason