Wealth
Definitions of 'wealth'
Wealth is enjoying what we already have, not getting more of what we think will make us happy. We are wealthy when we have learned to live with ourselves, knowing that what we are and have is enough. (Roger and McWilliams 1992, Page 3)
When we know it's our apprecaiation of what we have - not what we have -that brings enjoyment, it's easier to choose what we really want. When we pursue what we really want, we stand a much better chsnce of not only getting it, but enjoying the pursuit. (Roger and McWilliams 1992, Page 3)
We define wealth as health, happiness, abundance, prosperity, riches, loving, caring, sharing, learning, knowing what we want, opportunity, enjoying and balance. Together, they form wealth. We consider these attributes of wealth to be attitudes, not things. Wealth is a way of looking at life. (Roger and McWilliams 1992, Page 9)
"What is it for a life itself to be improvished?" As soon as the issue is put this way one must ask, " Impoverished in what dimmensions?"
The human good is too diverse to try to capture either its richness or its poverty in a single dimension.
For instance, we can identify five forms of impoverishment:
Material impoverishment, meaning inadequate of goods and services such that the individual experiences (or is exposed to) disease, hunger, starvation...
Intellectual impoverishment, menaing an inadequacy of education and/or absence of interaction with others so that the individual does not partake
in a life of the mind.
Spiritaul impoverishment, meaning the absence of any transcendent meaning in the experiience of activies of the individual.
Aesthetic impoverishment, meaning the absence of beauty within the person's life, whether it be the beauty of matrerial possessions, the natural environment, the urban world, or the absence of ceremony.
Social impoverishment, meaning an absence of central relationships, of friends and loved ones.
John Roger and Peter McWilliams (1992) Wealth 101 Getting What You Want- Enjoying What You've Got, Los Angeles: Prelude Press 1992