Wealth Reimagined: A Winter Solstice Contemplation

Betty-Anne Howard

wealth reimagined for the winter solstice

“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life”
Henry David Thoreau

“The Winter Solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time – a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken.”
Frederick Lenz

This year, December 21st marks the Winter Solstice. It’s a time for new beginnings, where we welcome the sun back into our lives, both literally and figuratively. And it’s a time to reflect on the year behind us, and think about what we want to invite into our lives in the coming year.

But, you may be wondering, what does the Winter Solstice has to do with reimagining how we perceive wealth in our lives…?

As I contemplated the upcoming solstice, I began to think about wealth and how we define it. Is it solely and simply money? Do we have to have lots of money to experience life fully? Of course not. So what is wealth? Lately, I’ve been inspired by the words of Thoreau “wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”

When we broaden our definition to framing wealth as Thoreau does, we can use our imagination to find ways to fully and completely experience our lives. Thinking this way expands our possibilities. Imagine what your life would look like when it’s led by your values and what’s most important to you?

Winter Solstice is for new beginnings

The new beginning that the Winter Solstice brings is the ideal time to reflect on how we might imaginatively rethink our wealth. We can explore what it means to each of us to fully experience our lives in all ways – physically, emotionally, and spiritually, as well as how we experience our lives in our relationship with ourselves, our friends, our family, and our communities.

Thoreau was an American Philosopher, essayist, and poet who loved nature and reveled in all the bounty it provided. He was an environmentalist, a fierce abolitionist, and against the oppression of Native Americans. He wanted each person to find their own way in life.

Celebrated for his views on life almost 150 years after his death, we now see his quotes everywhere motivating and inspiring us daily. His philosophy on life was influenced by his values and principles, as it is for all of us. However, how often do we take the time to reflect on our values and principles?

One of Thoreau’s key messages was that there are far more important things in life than money. “To live simply so others may simply live” was one of his mottoes. What does that quote mean for you, personally? Inward learning and introspection are critical to this process, according to Thoreau.

Jumping into the future

I’ve recently watched a television show called Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov’s books by the same name. I find it fascinating that coming out of the second world war he used his imagination to create a world with many galaxies, different cultures and beliefs. In Foundation, some spaceships can time jump into the future, which made me wonder – what if Thoreau were able to jump ahead in time so he could see the impact his writing has had on others?

And what if we were able to jump ahead by 50 or 100 years and see how we’re being remembered? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

How will I be remembered, and what have I done in my life that will have a lasting impact on future generations? With the Winter Solstice fast approaching, it’s a great time to set intentions and contemplate our legacy, our wealth, and what the future might hold.

Or, does it feel too big for you right now to go there, imagining your impact that far into the future?

My family history helps guide my future

For myself, I remember 30 years as I held my Mother’s hand while she was being injected with chemotherapy, tears in her eyes pleading with me to help keep her alive. Fear ran through her veins and mine. She was dearly loved by our entire family because she had such a big heart, and my own heart ached with the pain of losing her.

She made me promise that I’d do everything I could so that my two youngest nieces, who were both under the age of 4 at the time, would remember her. But, unfortunately, she only lived for another few months and died at the age of 64, a year younger than I am now. We were heartbroken.

In preparation for this year’s Solstice, I remembered this promise to my Mother, which was particularly poignant when my nieces told me recently, when I asked, that they have no memory of her.

So I decided to buy Scrapbooks and family stickers to create memories for them. My two nieces now have five children of their own in total, and sadly they don’t remember their Grandmother.

I feel I have a responsibility to share some of the life lessons I learned from this remarkable woman. How she fully experienced her life with my Father, even though they spent much of our growing up years living below the poverty line.

My Mother provided food for the men called hobos at the time – homeless men hopping on and off the train that went behind our tiny little house that many people called a shack. And yet this simple act of kindness reminded us as children that there are always people who have less than we do, so we need to help out in whatever way we can, however we can.

Those lessons stayed with me throughout my life and are probably the lessons that now drive my passion for making the most significant impact I can in our communities and our lives both now and via gifts in my will to my favourite charities. I want to be a part of creating a world we can all be proud of.

Health is an important part of wealth

My mother had a four-year ordeal with cancer that started in her breast, but there was no sign of cancer two years later. Eventually, it came back, and she underwent several months of chemo, which put it into remission, and then a few months later, the cancer was all through her body. The doctors asked her how she wanted to spend what time she had left to live.

Her answer was – she wanted to fight, and continue the chemo. Who wouldn’t? As someone once told me, “until you’re face to face with your mortality, you’d be surprised what you’d be willing to do to prolong your life.” I now have a much better understanding of what she meant, given that she’d gone through her own journey with her husband, who also died of cancer.

Where I’m going with this is that our health is indeed a significant measure of our ability to live a full life – without it, everything changes. I saw that with my Mother, and I see it every day in our lives. Health is a crucial measure for me when it comes to how I perceive wealth – health, wealth, and wisdom all go hand in hand.

Now that I am getting older, I think about that often, how precarious my health seems at times, how very precious it is, and yet so many of us take it for granted. But, that’s not the case for those who have had to face a severe illness. My friend’s wife is among them. I know that they are grateful for each and every day as they get up close and personal with the fragility of life.

Wealth can be the ability to give to others

Another way to look at wealth is the ability to make and have choices in our lives, including giving to others. The interesting dichotomy is that so many people who have so much to give in terms of their time and money believe that this is only an option for “wealthy people,” and yet that’s not true.

I’ve found over the past 23 years working in financial services that the amount of money people have or make is not necessarily an indicator of wealth when it comes to their perceptions of wealth. I think we’ve done ourselves a disservice by believing that it’s only wealthy people who have the resources to give back to our communities and therefore not us.

A generosity mindset

Some people talk about an abundance vs. a scarcity mindset, but I believe in a generosity mindset regardless of how much money you have, and I’ve seen it and experienced it repeatedly. You can be generous in spirit, making a difference in the lives of others in so many different ways – a kind word, showing compassion, bearing witness to other people’s painful experiences. And yes, if you have the means, money helps too. Generosity of spirit is evident when you look into someone’s eyes, these are the people who go through life experiencing joyful moments with big kind hearts, just like my Mother.

And this generosity of spirit is my Mother’s legacy; she passed on many valuable life lessons to me that have spurred me on to become a better person each and every day of my life.

When the solstice rolls around I think about the past year, what I feel good about and what I learned. I think about how my parent’s values are reflected in my decisions – for example, how passionate I am about making information accessible (my Father couldn’t read or write) so people can make informed decisions. I think about how excited I get when I can learn more about our client’s families, about who and what made a difference in their lives, and how we can celebrate that with their legacy.

The legacy of your family history

You might be surprised at how the little things can add up. I think about my Grandmother teaching me to milk a cow by hand (or at least trying to!). If we were relying on the amount of milk I was getting from the cow, well, we would have gone thirsty, and besides, I didn’t believe my Grandmother when she told me I wasn’t hurting the cow.

She shooed me away from the milking stool and told me to go gather the eggs from under the chickens which I also failed at, miserably. I was convinced I was taking their little chicks away from them and I didn’t want to be any part of that. So what did my Grandmother do with me then? She sent me out to weed the garden and pump water from the well into buckets that we then carried into the house for drinking water. My Grandmother taught me the value of working hard and doing what it takes to support your family.

I also think about my Grandfather, who was deaf and bullied throughout his life because of it. He always taught me to see that other people, even the bullies, have their own stories and that we’re not living their lives, so we shouldn’t judge them. He said, “two wrongs don’t make a right,” and that’s something that was passed on from my Grandparents to my parents and now to me.

Reimagine wealth this winter solstice

So, what does wealth mean to you if you put it within the context of living your life fully? Will you take the time to reflect over the Winter Solstice on this question along with thinking about the life lessons you’ve learned over the years from your family – your parents and your grandparents – and how you may want to pass this legacy on to the next generation?

Wealth can mean whatever you want it to mean. We all get to choose what allows us to feel abundant and wealthy – it’s about so much more than just money.

This Winter Solstice, I invite you to consider what wealth means to you and how you can cultivate more of it in your life. What steps can you take to create the wealth and life you envision so you can live it fully and completely?

How can you reimagine wealth in ways that honour your family in the past, present and future?

Let me know in the comments below!