Would You Trade 10 Years of Life for Wealth and Fame?
Let me share a little bit with you my reply to the 1st question because it relates to my thoughts and answer for the 2nd question.
What are the goals that you want to achieve in 2022?
2021 closes as personal success in my own definition. The year of so many uncertainties brought opportunities for self-development, self-reflection, and expanding my friend circle! It’s surprising that I made more friends in a few months of lockdown than in the past 1 year. But again, everybody was at home and started to connect online via forums, courses, group talks, and discussions. I am grateful for this year because my family, friends, and I stayed healthy, I had enough food and supplies, I had tremendous support from groups that I joined both as a volunteer and as group leader. My work was busy and I contributed labor to my company to help clients during tough economic times as well as train new staff. And I had a lot more time to connect with myself, to understand myself, and start and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
I will spend next week working on my vision board for the next 3 years. In 2022, my goals are similar to 2021 plans: to design and live a well-balanced life inspired by the Wheel of the life cycle, which includes these areas:
🐳 Physical: I continue to work on my health & stay in shape.
🐒 Mental & mind: I practice meditation daily for a healthy mind.
🐶 Family & relationship: I understand and heal past relationship wounds and connect deeper and more truthfully and authentically with family members. I attract my true love.
🦅 Self-development: I continue this journey of exploring, understanding, and improving the true self.
🌷 Community: I continue to volunteer and give back, help spread positivity to the community.
🎯 Career & finance: I grow in my career, increase my income significantly while maintaining a work-life balance. I work towards my goal of being financially independent in the next 10 years.
🦄 Hobbies: I write and make YouTube videos and have 1000 followers.
2021 WOL illustration.jpg
With these goals for 2022, I can easily relate to question #2 and I think about it:
Would you trade 10 years of life for wealth and fame?
The offer is tempting of course because after all, my plan is to be financially independent in 10 years. The fame is not a big part of my plan but it is there as well. This makes me think deeply, even though I know right away my answer, I still reflect on the idea in more detail.
I asked myself: why is such a question raised? It must be because there is a possibility that someone out there in the world would say Yes to the offer. I believe this is the current issue in our society: we want things and we want them now. We can’t wait and be patient, we demand more and we demand them right away. If we can’t have something quickly, we lose interest or motivation and a lot of people turn stressed, bitter, and depressed. We may not hesitate to trade health and our precious time for money and fame. The result is more overworked, burnt-out, and depressed members of society, especially in some parts of the world where wealth and fame are valued so importantly. This issue spreads to young children as well. If you have heard of instant gratification, you can observe how impatient children are. They have a lot more material items than previous generations but they also get bored easily and want more. My heart goes to them every time I think about this, and maybe that’s why I avoid thinking about it much! They stay stuck in that circle created by the actions of adults and the common beliefs of society. Adults are also stuck with work, promotion, bigger houses, nicer cars, expensive vacation trips, and more work.
Let’s be clear. I don’t despise hard work and rewards to each individual. However, during this process, we forget to stop and look at the green grass, the bees and butterflies, the blue sky and white clouds, to smell the rose, and to smile. We want time to fly quickly so we get to our final goal of having lots of money and success. That’s the reason I think people may choose to trade their 10 years of life for ultimate wealth and fame.
However, the answer for me is “No, thank you!” 😊
Probably I’d consider saying “Yes” if I was 15 now, I don’t know. But having lived through tough times in life, I value time so much that no money can buy or trade it. I can’t be sure my plan will work in 10 years and I will become wealthy & famous. But I am sure I will live my next 10 years meaningfully, to as many seconds and minutes as I can.
I think there are two main reasons leading me to say no to that offer.
🍀 The first is: I can modestly say I work hard and I am confident I can earn enough to live in wealth (according to my standards). I already feel wealthy now so why would I trade my precious time for wealth. My definition of wealth doesn’t limit in only the amount of money I have in the bank, but rather my good health, the job that I enjoy, my relationship, my mental stage and my inner peace at the moment, my ability to breathe, to see, to smile, to enjoy a cup of coffee and a chat with a new friend. All of these factors make me wealthy and happy. I am wealthy because I can spend time with my loved ones and make memories with them. I treasure the time spent with other people to create a human-to-human connection. And I am grateful and proud to say I am already living a wealthy life.
🍀 The second reason is as important as the first one. Even if I was in lack money and fame, I would still choose to walk my path, to experience life to the fullest, to prove my ability. This is only my opinion on this matter. I believe life is worth living every minute. There is a saying that I repeat to myself all the time: “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way” – Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. I think everyone who wants wealth and fame has the ultimate goal of being happy in life. And by trading your living time to get to the end goal of happiness, you miss out a lot. You miss out on the journey and the joy and happiness of the way to get to your goals. Honestly, I believe it is completely different for a person to achieve goals (or even half of his/her goals) through his/her hard work versus a person who suddenly gets the goals handed to him/her without any work required. Who will value the results more? Who has lived a meaningful and beautiful life full of experiences, even ups, and downs to re-tell his/her life story? Who do you prefer to be?
Of course, I choose to work hard to achieve my goals. From past experiences, the joy I received throughout the process was as much, if not more than the end result.
I always hear about the curse of winning the lottery. Imagine someone winning a lottery ticket and becoming rich overnight. The statistics show that he/she is likely to lose all money and become poor and in worse condition than before winning. Imagine someone working hard, saving, and investing to earn the same amount of money. This person is less likely to lose money and even if he does, he knows exactly how to earn back the lost money, not relying on pure luck.
This trade of time for wealth and fame has some similarities with the lottery story. I imagine myself at 20 accepting the offer. Suddenly I am rich and famous and I’m 30 years old. I feel extremely lucky, I will go out to spend my money (easily earned) without any knowledge of financial planning and management. I can quickly use up all money I just get. Let say I also become a famous athlete. I have tons of fans who cheer when they see me on the street. But I have no idea how to train to be an athlete and I have no patience, consistency, or discipline to train and improve my skills. Very soon my competitors will beat me. This applies the same if I choose to be a famous actress or singer, a master chef, a politician, etc. I don’t have the skills required to be good at what I do and very quickly people forget me. Then what would I do? I probably consider trading another 15 years for more money and fame. I think my life would be over very quickly. I have intentionally foregone time with my parents, family, and friends and especially time with myself. I won’t have time to travel, to learn new skills, or to sit here and write this content 😊
To conclude, my life is to be lived, not to be traded, no matter what I am trading for. I hope you choose to live your life and spread joy throughout your lifetime. Together, let’s make this world a happier and more peaceful place!
With love, from Vung Tau, Dec 2021
P.S: again my big thanks to Trang for initiating this contest topic! I would like to invite my lovely friend @vivianne to participate in this contest. I hope everyone enjoys thinking and writing about this topic to close out 2021. Cheers!
