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Think Green: What Is Prosperity…. Really?

As someone dedicated to healing the epidemic of scarcity consciousness and the consumerism it fuels, I’m excited about answering the essential question “What is prosperity?”  You know, it’s taken me years to get clear about its meaning, because the ways in which we define language change as we change.

As a young girl in Southern California, I had a significantly different idea about prosperity back then, as I do now. And there’s something I want to point out before I go any further, and that is we’re not talking about some rigid dictionary meaning here, but a fluid and evolving understanding of the power of language to define yourself.

In other words, I’m going to share what prosperity means to me, but I don’t want you to take it as anything other than my opinion.  Instead, I’d encourage you to define or even redefine prosperity for yourself. Because, after all, it’s what you think that makes the difference.

I think it’s fair to say that American culture has essentially equated getting rich with being prosperous.  In fact, there’s a strange irony when you consider that while much of the world believes the United States to be extraordinarily affluent, the hard statistics show that we are currently facing record-setting national debt and personal bankruptcy.  It’s about time for new meanings and new methods.

The dictionary defines prosperity as: The state of being successful, thriving or wealthy. And there you have it. If you remember anything at all from this article, let it be this: Prosperity is not something you have, it’s something you are. By definition, it’s a state of being rather than an amassing of what you can buy, or store, or covet or lose.

To be prosperous is about merit, not material.  To be successful is to enjoy personal power, not purchasing power.  And to be a wealthy is to be healthy and whole; to have a presence about you, and to own your own brilliance, your own joy and to be fully autonomous, fully free to pursue the happiness you seek. 

It seems that the ways in which my ideas about prosperity have changed is not so much a function of aging as it is of maturing.  By that I mean that how I define success is more holistic than ever before. And I’m curious if the same thing isn’t true for you.  Do you feel successful when you are tired and stressed out and overwhelmed?  Does what you have in the bank ever make a difference when you get to that burned out stage?

Yours truly was the poster girl for the Superwoman Syndrome.  By the age of 30, I’d started my third business, was deep in the throes of an eight year do-it-yourself remodel, all while taking courses and doing volunteer work.  My motto was “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” Everyday I got up and lived my list.  But no more!  Now I get up and live my life.  I choose the sweetness of being human over the habitual desire to do more.

And the thing is that choosing your self is the key that unlocks what’s possible.  When you are willing to stop getting and stop going, you have an invaluable, precious opportunity to uncover the reasons why you put yourself last.  It’s a journey; a long and winding path from merely surviving to really thriving.  Welcome, you’re not alone…

It was Earl Nightingale who said “We must be the epitome, the embodiment, of success.  We must radiate success before it will come to us.  We must first become mentally, from an attitude standpoint, the people we wish to become.”

What do you think?

Joyanne

October 22, 2008 at 5:04 am 1 comment