Everyday Life for Four Seasons

We sat down the other day and articulated some answers to the question "what makes me feel wealthy?" Our answers included:

• Having leisure time together


• Spending time with and appreciating our children and each other


• Being in good health and feeling physically fit


• Contributing to causes we care about


• Respecting the environment


• Spending time in nature


• Living in an uncluttered environment


• Saving for our retirement and for more home improvements

I like to feel grateful and I like to feel like I have "enough" - to feel wealthy - and I have found that if I have some goals or a general outline of what makes me feel that way, it's easier to recognize when I feel grateful and appreciative and when I feel selfish, stingy and "poor."

"Living in an uncluttered environment" was Jeff's contribution. It's definitely something I agree with - there's nothing I like better than cleaning out my closets and getting rid of everything in there. Very few items make it into my sentimental box, which is no larger than a shoe box and is currently half full. Jeff is not the greatest about cleaning things out and it surprised me to hear him say that he feels wealthier if he is living in an uncluttered space. The trick for him is going to be finding a system to keep his things organized and uncluttered. That's the hang-up. He can't use my system for his stuff, because my system works for me, not for him.

Interestingly enough, clearing out our home will not only get our chi moving around a little bit, it might also bring us some more money (and make us feel more wealthy!) because we have a number of things to sell.

Making this list is helpful for us because now we can use it as a roadmap and check the things we do and the money we spend against it. For instance, how do we want to spend our time this next month? I would love to paint some more rooms in the house, but when I look at the list, painting isn't going to make us feel as wealthy as selling the items in our attic will. So, we are spending some January weekends selling our stuff instead. We also really miss getting outdoors more often. Jeff has been skiing a few times each season, but I haven't been on a snowboard in 4 years and I would really like to go again soon. We are making time to do that this season.

One of the other things we are going to do is carve out a home workspace for Jeff. His company is very supportive of him working from home part of the time, and he likes the idea of saving the commuting time and the gasoline expenses. Our open floor plan doesn't lend itself to having a quiet home office, but we're going to see what we can do. Taking the time to carve out the space for Jeff is something that our new general wealth guidelines would support.

I've been reading about feng shui and chi and how it relates to wealth and resources. There are parts of our time management and our checkbook where we are happy with the way our chi is flowing, and there are other places were the chi isn't flowing in the direction we want. Taking time to notice it and taking steps to help the flow feels like a step in the right direction. One of the things we are doing is adding a coin each day to a coin jar that I placed in the wealth area of our home. When we add the coin, and when we give any money to anyone for that matter, we should wish the money well and have warm feelings about it. Jeff went to toss in his pocket change today and he humored me when I said, "have warm thoughts!"


This holiday season has been unkind to our waistlines. Now it's back to the gym, back to eating well, back to feeling good! THAT will help my chi!