Getting to live the rich life and embrace our rich era. Are you game? 💰🤑

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. What does it mean to be rich, to feel rich, and ultimately, have a rich life?

Believe it or not, I am always creating and looking for ways to inject and enjoy richness in my life.

Whether that is through places, people, spaces, experiences, feelings — all tangible and intangible forms of richness are welcome.

You probably read “rich” and want to roll your eyes to the back of your head.

First, don’t do that. Second, stay with me.

Your first thought reading “rich” automatically defaults to “money” or “material possessions — which is not wrong. It’s just one way, albeit, very restrictive to qualify “rich”.

Typing “rich” into any search bar all points to having “tons of money” and extravagant displays of wealth — that’s how the world views, interprets, and symbolizes “richness”.

And naturally, it is all we have come to accept and adopt as what it means to be rich.

Curiosity is such a tricky trait to possess as a human because it gets you down a path of exploring unchartered territories. You have to discover answers for yourself that satisfies that curious itch.

The result of possessing this God-given trait is that I think, I think a lot and can live in my mind for extended periods of time wondering and pondering.

Here’s a little secret, TSF is where I think out loud and share my thoughts with like-minded humans (i.e., you reading this right now).

What does curiosity have to do with being rich? So glad you asked.

Curiosity is a richness of the mind. When you are curious, you explore, you expand, you experience.

I will make one thing clear, having money and material possessions that make life easier, softer, and enjoyable is definitely an aspect that contributes to the richness of life — make no mistakes about that 💸💸.

However, underpinning “possessions” as the sole foundation or necessity that qualifies a rich life is grossly underestimating what it takes to build one and quite frankly, it is a blatant lie that we have all been sold or chosen to buy into, whichever applies to you.

Let me break it down slowly and clearly.

Rich → Moments in life that fill you up and make you appreciate living (tangible and intangible).

Purposeful → Have direction and meaning as the foundation of who you are and what you do.

Richly Purposeful → Living a life filled with purpose that is designed to maximize moments that fill you up while impacting others in the best way possible.

You can be rich in many things and in many ways.

You can find meaning in people, places, experiences, moments, trials… the list goes on!

Your purpose can be expressed in what you do, how you show up in the world, and where you contribute to it in different ways.

The whole point is that you get to live life on your terms which is way easier said than done. The world is now engineered in a way that makes it extremely difficult to get to this realization.

Everything from societal expectations and peer pressure to conspicuous consumerism, social hierarchies, and hyper-personalized virtual worlds has conditioned us to “keep up” with others and be in constant comparison with them.

So much so that in the midst of all these, we forget to live our actual lives and interact with the world around us. I fall into that routine ever so often and I consciously try to mitigate it.

Have you ever wondered, why am I watching a “what I eat in a day of a random person?” or “come with me to [insert wherever]” when you are in your own house and supposed to be living your own life instead of watching others?

Yes, entertainment is great and highly encouraged but at what point do we stop blurring the lines?

The concept of “streaming” boggles my mind. What do you mean you are at home watching someone else live their lives every second of a waking day? How do you not realize that you are effectively wasting your own time and burning hours that you will never get back?

If we become more aware and intentional of how we spend our time and consequently, our daily lives, we would get closer to designing and building a life that is richly purposeful for us both tangibly and intangibly.

You can:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been trained on billions of human data, so I asked:

What does having a richly purposeful life look like?

Here’s the breakdown informed by Gemini 👇🏾

And maybe the simplest way to capture it is: “On purpose.”

In all of the above, money was not the focal point. Is it important, yes! Does it dictate the entirety of a richly purposeful life, no!

Do with this realization whatever you will 🤎🤎

Lately, I’ve done things and experienced moments simply because I wanted to (did someone say freewill?).

I have let myself freely express emotions, communicate my intentions, experience moments as they are, have conversations, enjoy outcomes, appreciate my efforts, sit with frustration, and learn more about the world I’m creating while immersed in it.

All of the above comes with intention and ruthless self-awareness. It is so easy to be on auto-pilot existing through our days and not truly living it.

Excitement is great, thrill is even more addictive, so is sitting in the mundane and appreciating the richness in the juxtaposition that life is.

If we pay a little more attention while focusing on what really matters to us, you’ll see that life is truly beautiful. And I hope you get to experience it in a rich way that fills your soul, heart, mind, body, and spirit.

So what does a richly purposeful life mean to you? What does it look like? 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Stay Audacious,
Chikodilee.