Each person lives life traversing their own unique path, but it is only when we look back and derive lessons from our experiences do we truly bring sweetness to our lives.
I recently recalled my relationship with money (or lack thereof) growing up. My parents – may God bless and have mercy on them – were hard workers, but times were increasingly tough. I distinctly remember aspects of my childhood where I was desirous of many things I saw around me, but felt a sense of what I can only describe as ‘reverse inevitability’. I knew that I would not be able to have those things regardless of how much I wanted them.
Growing up financially-challenged served to embed deep within me an empty feeling of inferiority, and when you are a teenager, your family starts to become second to your friends. And as we all know, all teenagers can seem to do is compare themselves to their peers.
I remember being in awe of a classmate who could afford to purchase a £0.50 donut every morning on the way to school, wishing I could one day have enough to be as free and liberal with money as he was. The inaccessibility of that donut made it seem all the tastier in my mind, and even until this very day I can recall the feeling just by thinking about it. When I heard that another classmate was given an occasional £20 to cover his food needs for the day, it confounded my mind as a symbol of unintelligible wealth … O’ my young mind! How naïve you were!
On the other hand, I have no doubt that my parents would have done everything in their capacity to give me anything I wanted, perhaps the issue was that I never asked, but I always felt it above my level of life to be able to afford those things. In other ways I had the staples of childhood for the time, games consoles and the odd Nike trainers, but the notion of tangible cash was foreign to me. I never had any hard money to buy anything. I was acutely aware of the struggle my family collectively endured growing up and absorbed within myself an acceptance of not asking for things I knew would be strenuous for me to be given.
As the years passed, these experiences led me absorb the idea that my childhood was lacking something fundamental, that I had missed out on something so vital to my satisfaction in life. If only I had money to freely buy the things I wanted, perhaps then I would have had the perfect childhood I dreamt of. I resolved to bridge this gap with my own life and children in the distant future.
Time passed. Now I am an adult, and my situation has indeed changed to one of ease. But more interestingly, I have also met and spoken to many people in the decades since my childhood, each giving me new perspectives on life.
After what I have heard, many of my beliefs I had growing up have been shattered.
In particular, I have met people who had materially abundant childhoods but were lacking the deep, authentic parental love I never even considered being without. This seemed to have left deeper, more lasting scars an order of magnitude more severe than anything I felt when believing that the pocket money one was given determined everything.
With this perspective, I now realise that the material condition of one’s childhood is largely irrelevant to one’s overall happiness and life satisfaction. Yes, it helps – and there is real benefit to not having to go without, but in the wider scope of life, having loving parents and a good relationship with your family and friends counts more than you could ever imagine. Not only can it act as a substitute for things you may not have, it can even replace many of them entirely.
We thus arrive at the age-old conclusion that meets so many of us at the end of all roads of enquiry. It is the relationship you have with your parents, family and people around you that serve to elevate the quality of your life beyond almost any other measure. Armed with this incalculable blessing, one gains the moral courage and spiritual strength to challenge and overcome any obstacle. The warmth one receives from this fire gives us the strength to challenge the biting cold and meet any adversity head-on.
Indeed, my childhood awe at the material wealth of others seemed so significant at the time precisely because every other aspect of my life was covered. It blinded me to the unfortunate reality that anyone could have parents who were apathetic – or even worse, abusive to them. It is only now in my relatively later years that I realise the significance of this fact.
It was only due to the abundant love and warmth I received as a child that the superficial lack of wealth seemed like such a big problem to me in the first place. I realise now how blessed I was and always have been. I see now that while I looked towards others with a desiring eye, I enjoyed riches the likes of which no gold or silver could buy. That donut evaded my grasp morning after morning and my desire to buy sweets after school was simply never to be, but I feel the effects of the love I received from my parents until this very day. This same love echoes forward into the future as I play with and love my own children in turn.
If there is any lesson from this reflection, it is this.
Love your family – parents towards their children and children back towards their parents. Foster strong bonds together and most importantly, spend quality time together, for it is the only currency we ever truly own. Everyone is born with a finite amount and how we choose to spend it signifies what we truly hold dear. The fact that none of us ever know how much of this currency we truly own only emphasises its value.
That £0.50 donut represented something which aroused feelings of inferiority all those years ago, but I see now that it was in fact a silent proof of how much I was loved, of how much I was cared for and valued within my own family. I was, in fact, living the dream life so many others too silently craved. I may have been superficially ‘poor’, but in reality I was abundantly wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, and it is that same wealth that propelled me forwards my whole life and guides my actions until this very day.
Spend deep time with those you love, everything else will take care of itself.