The only wealth you will keep forever, is the wealth you have given away – Marcus Aurelius Antonius
Marcus Aurelius Antonius, the last of the five good Roman emperor, and one of the most important Stoic philosophers said that. An intriguing Tweet from one of my friends.
Thinking over the emperor’s words, it stumps me. How could wealth one has given away be something that we keep forever? Don’t we lose it the instance we gave it away? What does this Stoic philosopher mean?
Looking back at the words, the problem lies in our understanding of wealth. The question is simple. What does wealth mean?
Several definitions from some established dictionaries :
- An abundance of valuable possesions or money – Oxford Dictionaries
- Abundance of valuable material possessions or resources - Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- A large amount of money and valuable material possessions, redistribution wealth – Collins Dictionary
I naturally replied to the tweet, inciting an answer. The reply tweet says to incorporates knowledge and affection to ‘wealth’, depending on our own individual definitions. I’d definitely include time to my dictionary of ‘wealth’ too.
What’s interesting comes when we expand the idea. How then do we judge which people are wealthy and which are not?
Let’s say, my definition of wealth encompasses knowledge and experience. The more knowledge and experience a person has, the wealthiest the person is. The wealthiest and most fortunate man, would be the one who has gone through so much and to so many places. But thinking about the limited amount of resources and time a person has, how does one become so ‘wealthy’ with knowledge in this life?
A simple answer would be to go through life frequently contemplating what we have done. Each and every mistake would be a great learning. One misadvantage though, it can be done only once the event has passed, and we have to personally experience it. So, how do we gain more ‘wealth’?
Once, I attended a talk (I’m sorry I forgot who the speaker was). He (yes I remembered the speaker was a ‘he’) told the audience “I had been living for more than a hundred years”. Everybody looked at him quizzically. So do I. ‘This guy must be crazy’ I thought, bracing for the next thing he was going to say. “I may not look like it. But I’ve been living a hundred years” he repeated. Yea right.
“I don’t literally live for a hundred years. I live several years older by reading books, especially biographies. I learn from other’s lives.”
A nice way to think about it. 
