There is success and fulfilment and then, there is making money. Human beings are wired to seek meaning and fulfilment in life, and while hunger, lack and scarcity might prove to be a more urgent need than fulfilment, it does not actually take much to quench the hunger pangs and begin to demand for more from your life. Deep down, it is not about how much money or how much stuff you have, it is always about finding some meaning and a sense of eternal purpose in your daily living. It is a spiritual poverty every one struggles with sooner or later.
A poor person does not understand the difference between making money and striving for success, mastery and fulfilment. This is because their actions are driven by hunger, scarcity and lack. A hungry man needs food and not some “pie-in-the-sky” feel-good motivational speech, but where do we draw the line? It is important to possess the bare necessities of life, while nurturing an understanding that fulfilment in itself will not come just because there is food in the belly. Something deeply wired within you will cry for expression. Our daily living should not be about the food, drink and sleep we enjoy, it should be about the work it enables.
Our sense of success and fulfilment is tied to our productivity. We already know that there is no joy to be derived from possessions. You will get an initial rush of excitement from a new acquisition of a shoe or a smartphone or a private jet, but over time, the excitement fades off, and you begin to contemplate the next acquisition that could bring you your next wave of excitement. This is not a pattern for good success.
We do not get fulfilment for the things we get, but rather for the things we give away. This is the spiritual principle behind the phenomenon of billionaires’ obsession with charity. All the money in the world would never give one a sense of fulfilment, it is the work it enables that brings the joy and fulfilment. That is why money must never be made the central pursuit of our lives, poverty is not an excuse. You will only quench the thirst of your soul by seeking out to produce high-quality work that really justifies the nature of God inside you. That is the first step to fulfilment.
