Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.  – Henry David Thoreau

At the risk of sounding totally corny, I'm going to tell you (and myself) all the ways I know I'm rich already. I may have to remind myself of these more often than a better person would, but nevertheless I'm thankful every day that I am already wealthier than a lot of people.

1. Though I am working to take better care of myself, I have my health and up to now always have. This is easy to forget about until it is too late, and I refuse to be one of those people who fall apart after they turn 40. I want to still be trucking around on my bicycle when I'm 84, so I am careful these days to stay mindful of how I am treating my body. But up to and including now, it has been my friend (even during the times I tested our relationship).

2. I met my soul mate. I do not (nor have ever) believe that one has to have a partner or be married to live a fulfilling and rich life, but it has certainly made my life a lot of fun and I am happy to have him around these almost five years.

3. It may be true that I don't like Dallas much, but it is true that we love our little home, and have very nice friends here, and though we may continue to plot our departure, we are very lucky to have a roof over our heads and such a cozy little corner of the world to play in.

4. I LUV MY BEHBEHZ!

5. No job is perfect, and I have had to renegotiate my relationship to my company several times over the past thirteen years (!!!), but the truth is I really like who I work for. I particularly like the division I am in now, and I really like my team. It's not all awesome, but the grand majority is; and if it wasn't for this company I wouldn't have been more than half the places I've been and I'd have about half as many wonderful friends all over the world. Non-profit educational work is never going to make me a million dollars, but it does make me a pretty rich woman. 

6. I'm not these dudes. 

7. I'm pretty smart, and I can READ, and I am creative and curious enough in things going on around me that I'm never ever bored, and when all else fails I can make up songs to entertain myself. This means I have a full life surrounded by happy things and I do not think I'll ever want for ideas by which I can lead an interesting life, even if I FAIL SPECTACULARLY at some of the things I decide to try.

8. I may prefer to be in Europe where the following is also ok, but still – at least I WAS born in a place where it is ok to bitch about fixie crew douchey dudes, and they have the freedom to ride around being annoying, and I am a woman and can walk along the beach in a bikini and not have the Taliban kill me, and we have plentiful food so we are able to have the choice to eat or not eat meat, even if I prefer quinoa most of the time. I try to remind myself, in the depths of my frustration with tea-baggers and libertarians, that they can't help it if they are wrong, and we all have the freedom to be as big a MORAN in public as we want to be and some definitely take FULL ADVANTAGE OF THAT FREEDOM. 

9. I have the extra cash and capability to travel and explore. For some people this is not important, but for me it is, and I can't imagine having this desire without the means to make it happen from time to time, even if it doesn't seem like enough sometimes.

10. I have a good family, and amazing friends from Wellesley, from work, from high school, from places near and far – and what's just as cool? I have you, my internet friends, some of which I have never met in person despite having been friends online for years now. And I'm so glad to know you.

The one thing? The ONE thing? But there is so much that should be changed!

One thing. Well then.

Like Mark Twain, I wish people would travel more.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad,wholesome,charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little
corner of the earth all one’s life."

I think that sums it up. Surely a lot of problems would be solved if people were more broad-minded in their thinking?

I would hope so.

Still, it's really hard to say just one thing. What is your one thing?

Without a doubt, at least when it comes to talking of travel. I'm always dreaming of new cities; other voices, other rooms; places beyond my reach. I could travel all the time and never see everywhere I want to see. In that way alone, I'll have said way more than I'll ever be able to do.

I have quite a few excursions on my 101 in 1001 list. Perhaps too many to be realistic.

First of all, there are the big ones: Egypt this year, Korea & Japan next, a UK National trail, and a multi-day bike trek. That's four big trips in two and a half years, which is a lot, but not beyond possibility.

Then I'd like to visit five national parks. We'd like three weekend camping trips. And something I've always fantasized about doing – just going to Love Field with a bag, finding a reasonable ticket, and taking off for a weekend wherever. That's been something I've wanted to do since high school. Why? NO IDEA. Something to do with this fierce independent & adventurous streak I was born with, I suppose.

Beyond travel, I am actually learning to shut up and just do more than I have in the past. Sure, I have my opinions about politics and health care and wars and nutrition. I have, frankly, blathered on too much about them. Who cares what my opinion is? I mean, I care because it is my own moral code, but since people aren't capable of having sane public discussion, nor acting rationally, nor even being kind to each other, I've decided there isn't much point to airing them. So I have decided I am not very interested in the public discourse as it exists today. I'll just keep my opinions between myself and my husband, and we'll live our nice life according to our beliefs and no one else, raise our children as rational and kind human beings, and pray for me to find a job in the Netherlands or France or Canada so we can receive the social support I'd rather pay higher taxes to have. 

And when it is all said and done, I'd like to think I've said I love you, I like you, I value you more times than I can count to all the people in my life who deserve it. That is one way I think it is ok to have said an awful lot in the end.

One of the things I am most proud of in my life is that I have been fairly good at cutting out a lot of bullshit from it. Life does seem too short to waste time on things we do not like, so learning to say no was a lesson I learned thankfully early. Of course, there will always be things one has to do that one does not like. I don't love paying bills but it must be done, and thankfully technology has moved us past those days when one had to sit at a desk and write & mail ten CHECKS (jesus, remember CHECKS?!) and it took up a couple of hours one would rather spend doing just about anything else, but I still have to sit every now and then and review the finances simply because it MUST BE DONE. And who can love cleaning the litter box?

However, I am not so good at its inverse, which is why do I like so many things I don't do? Reading, knitting, cycling… how does the time disappear between the end of the work day and the time I go to sleep? When you have a lot of interests, how do you fit them all in? WHY DO I LIKE SO MANY THINGS? A.D.D. MUCH?

The entry about reading a couple weeks ago really helped me refine and refocus my time to include and enjoy reading again. I've read three books and am on my fourth, which feels great. I feel like I've reclaimed that hobby a bit, but am still striving to find more time for it (it's the reading that makes me miss the train/bus commutes of my past!). Now I need to add in the crafting, drawing, writing, cycling, listening to new music, watching old movies…

Why are there so many fun things to do and not enough hours? Can I shorten my sleep cycle? Should I have a knit-only month; a draw-only month; etc.?

I've got a lot of creative friends with wide interests out there. How do YOU make sure you include all the things you like to do in your life? Or do you struggle with this as well?

It seems so obvious, doesn't it? Never trying implies living with regrets, or unfulfilled dreams. Failing is at least an attempt. So you should always TRY something, right?

There are some things with which I am not at peace with my fear of failing. Just because having my writing rebuffed terrifies me doesn't mean I shouldn't at least try for publication. Just because I am afraid of being rejected from graduate schools and certain jobs doesn't mean I shouldn't try.  These are things that I'm working on and I can only hope I will move past some day.

However, aren't there some things that it's ok to never try? Or is it a fine line between never trying and not really desiring? Like, I'd really like to run a half marathon, but I know I'd fail at winning one. I mean, that would be cool, and I'd be really proud of myself, but also I don't really feel the need to try for that one. 

I guess I think there are some situations where this is an appropriate question to ask oneself, and there are other situations where it is better to roll with whichever decision and outcome makes the most sense. 

Maybe I'm over-thinking this. The point is, most likely, that trying is always ideal. But if you are like me, and internalize failure far more than you should, failure sounds like a really awful thing that should be avoided in order to be happy. I'd end up wondering why I spent so much time trying to win a damn half-marathon when I knew I'd fail anyway. I guess I just know my limits.

Anyone else feel this way?

In other news, I went to the Korean spa today and had about a pound of Ashbloem flesh scrubbed off of me. I feel like a new me.