The rich are innately born with a higher level of happiness — the ability to pay for problems to go away
However, money is not the only way to make problems go away. In fact there is something else, something better that we are all born with that can make problems go away — the ability to understand that our happiness is ultimately derived from our perception of the problems.
In my teens and twenties I got into car accident after car accident. I kept wondering if I was just an accident magnet. I did my best to drive cautiously, to remain within the speed limits, to be conscious of bad weather and to practice all the defensive driving tips I knew. Yet accidents continued. I went as far as consulting my father who was a born again Christian on what the issue could be. He told me that perhaps I have yet to learn something and that the same problem would keep occurring until my lesson was learned.
I couldn’t figure out what the lesson was until the worst happened. I was t-boned on the highway going 60 miles an hour. I couldn’t feel my face. My knees were badly bruised. I almost didn’t even get out my vehicle. The driver who hit me was a young woman, head down, unconscious on her dashboard. Both of our vehicles were emitting smoke. We survived.
While we waited for the medics to arrive we shared a conversation. As soon as I heard the sadness and guilt in her voice I no longer felt sadness and guilt in my own. In that moment I realized that some problems happen not because we’ve done anything wrong but just because they do. How we view our problems is everything.
I’m alive. The driver survived. Problems arose afterward — I had no car, I couldn’t purchase a new one, I had no vehicle to drive to work. Money could have easily solved all these things. But money wouldn’t have taught me to change my perception.
Money promotes comfort, convenience, and happiness, but it cannot promise all these things. What is promised is how we view life, how we view our problems, and our happiness can be as high or higher than anyone with money because our perception is priceless.
