A Life Well Spent

The Two-Step Abundance
Studies have shown that even with indulgences as simple as eating chocolate or drinking lattes, less is more. Perpetual indulgence deadens the effect. Who wants to say, “Ho hum. Another beach”? or, “Whoop-de-do, one more golf course”? To garner optimum pleasure in life, we need to learn the two-step abundance: one step forward, two steps back. Time away serves to fuel anticipation for the next indulgence. Look at the meals, the treats and the kind of outings you most enjoy and simply extend the periods between them so they give you greater rewards.

Best Purchase Ever!
When talking to audiences about purchases that pay off, I like to tell them about the possession I’m most proud of—a watch. This always gets puzzled looks, since it’s not a luxury item.

“It’s not the watch,” I say. “It’s the time it represents.”

I want to own my time, and I know that as long as there is debt hanging over me, or others controlling my fate, this dream is not possible.

I’m not saving toward retirement—because I have no desire to ever retire. Instead, I’m saving for something simple––24 hours in a day. Autonomy to do what I want with my time is arguably the most powerful thing money can buy.

For some, this means hiring a house cleaner; for others, it means paying for lawn care or various concierge services from laundry to grocery shopping. It turns out that the time paid for can be time well spent.

Sowing In Other Fields
It’s hard to think of a greater pleasure than investing in others, in supporting causes that move your heart. It could be engaging in microfinance programs, or offering money for life-saving inoculations, meals for orphans or programs that help children escape from human trafficking. Many people could tap into their potential if they only had some seed money. As a friend puts it, “If money is the only reason for not doing something good, then let’s go find the money.”

It’s easy to be cynical when people like Warren Buffett decide to give away 99% of their wealth. (We can all do the shorthand math on 1% of $70 billion.) But he is still offering an example of the good that abundant wealth can do. I applaud him and Bill Gates for creating a blueprint for those who have more than they could ever spend.

I’ve always been haunted by the scene in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, where Oskar Schindler cries out that he could have sold a gold pin and saved one more person. His final lament was that he had not allocated enough to helping others when it was in his power to do so, and yet no one had done as much as Schindler had done.

The poignancy of this scene is that it confronts us with questions of saving and spending, and asks, “For what?” Finally, it is wisdom in allocation and in valuing life more than money that leads to a life well spent.


Mitch Anthony is the author of The New Retirementality (Wiley), now in its fourth edition.