A Rich Life

Sorry this missive is late! My new email provider had technical issues over the weekend. I appreciate your patience.

Hello friends,

Part of my gratitude practice is noticing all the ways in which I feel rich. Usually, this is something as simple as voicing gratitude for having enough food to eat, and a warm place to sleep at night. I’m also rich in connections with people.

It took time to develop this practice, because I was not always aware of the ways in which I was rich.

I was raised working class/working poor, the last of eight children. My father drank alcohol all the time, and gambled, too, I found out later. Sometimes we relied on food stamps to get by. We shopped in thrift stores long before that became a popular or acceptable activity. I learned to sew, because in the times before fast fashion made trash heaps visible from space, making your own clothing was less expensive than buying new. We didn’t get an allowance. I started working around age twelve.

One thing that sticks in my mind as a signifier that we were not rich? It had nothing to do with anything, really. You see, our mother cut sandwiches in a worker-like fashion: in half, on the square. I noticed at school that the ones I thought of as “the fancy kids” all had their sandwiches cut on the diagonal. So, the other morning, I looked down at my breakfast plate of a peanut butter on toast sandwich and smiled. I had cut my sandwich on the diagonal. I’m a fancy kid now.

Another memory of feeling rich comes from when I worked full time in a soup kitchen in exchange for room and board. If I had a morning off, I would go back to bed with a cup of tea and a book. That made me feel rich, even though my stipend was $200 a month.

It's always the simple things that make me feel rich. The things that bring me joy or reduce friction. It’s friction—or a lack of friction—that’s the real measure of wealth. Wealthy people have far less friction in day-to-day life. There are fewer things that sap their energy and time. The poor? The poor pay dearly in both time and effort, ground down by friction several times a day.

Some people need a lot to feel rich. I’m fortunate enough to not need much. What I need is what I have.

How about you? What helps you feel rich in life?

best wishes — Thorn

Speaking of feeling rich, the support I get around my creative endeavors definitely tops my list. Thanks to everyone who has backed my latest Kickstarter campaign, Some Gathered Magic. It closes tomorrow evening, pacific time.