Personal life goal: to change/broaden the modern definition of wealth/prosperity

I will start with an admission: I copied the subject line with permission from Sarah Hartwin. One of my pet peeves with the internet is how often the same idea, often with the exact same words, shows up on multiple web sites with no acknowledgement.

However, when I read it, I found the idea profound. I think it's something I've been feeling for decades. I think our definition of wealth has been hijacked by this concept called: The Economy, and buzzwords like GDP (gross domestic product - interesting that "gross" can be a noun, a verb or an adjective, and the adjective can be an "informal term for vulgar, rude, or sickening.")

My goal here, is to write about the things I'm doing in my permaculture life to acknowledge and spread a permie definition of wealth and small things we can do to subtly shift the definition to be less "how much money do you have" to "what is something you did this week that makes you feel richer".

My first example:
My Son's mother in law is from India. Although we have stores that stock many of her native foods, it can be harder to get some of the fresh veggies she would use. She currently lives in a basement apartment and she *LOVES* to cook.

So I started some seeds, not all of which germinated. Yesterday, I took the plants that had and made up a large planter (about 20" in diameter) with a polyculture of Mustard Greens, pod peas, fenugreek and in the center, a tomato baby. I think I've forgotten one more. Then I made a second planter with an Indian Mint with some walking onions around the edge. My son helped me get the planters in his car and he delivered them. Within an hour, I got a message from his wife, "Mum loved the plants - all of them, especially the mustard and the mint. Thank you so much!!"

So Lesson One: Which is more important? Money in the bank, or making people happy?

Yesterday I made someone very happy and I feel richer for it. What have you done this week that makes you feel richer?

To answer opinion brief, I suspect the issue of balance comes into play.

I think I am after a similar thing, Jay, or maybe the same thing?
It's not a fully-formed concept for me - it's all still swirling. But here's a bit of it....

I want to literally grow a wealth of abundance. Whatever the land might produce, might do well on our (my husband's and my) future land, I dream of fabulous fertile production. I envision sharing that abundance in my community. Maybe some of that abundance will even be exchanged for money (higher numbers in a bank account). But maybe it won't. Maybe it will be traded or gifted or reinvested or used up. Or like you did - put to use to enrichen someone else.

I have this idealized version of ancient traditional peoples, nomads whose wealth was counted in flocks and herds and access to wells (water), or more stationary people later on who had vineyards. Yes, it was their possessions. But it was also that their abundance fit their lifestyle and their community. And it was abundance that actually sustained them.

I think I'm trying to connect "prosperity" to "experiences" (versus "possessions"), as well. I'm not really interested in measuring the wealth. I'm really after a diversity of wealth. And I think the diversity includes using knowledge, skills, lived experience (another area I can get wealthy in? be prosperous in?) to expand experiences for me and others around me.

So for me it's a mix of redefining literal wealth (things that actually enrichen us, like 3 years' worth of stored grain in a multi-year drought), and stretching the "wealth" concept to include community connections and outreach gestures and kindnesses that fill us up.
Oh! and also removing shame from the equation - whether shame around prosperity or shame around poverty.

I think there is a connection between accruing this kind of wealth and refilling spoons.

It's a message that is very personal. It's usually a happy thing thing to say *I* don't need all this money, but when someone says *YOU* don't need all that money, it's highly subject to misinterpretation. You would first need develop an iron clad moral character and live by example.

Paul goes on a lot about the hostility he witnesses with respect to kitchen activities that other cultures simply do not have any trouble with. I like to imagine if we could all learn to get along in the kitchen better, a lot of problems would be solved.

Jay Angler wrote:Yesterday I made someone very happy and I feel richer for it. What have you done this week that makes you feel richer?

I've had a pair of pants put up in a drawer for I don't know how many years. I finally hemmed them this week, and now they're in regular rotation with the rest of my work pants. I chose to sew them by hand, and that makes wearing them extra-satisfying. They're comfy and lightweight, and I'll appreciate them this summer.