As a young girl growing up, I loved throwing parties for my family and friends. These gatherings cost very little. All that was required was a little time and creativity.
I remember at age 15 throwing a summer tea party with my two best girlfriends. We spent over a month making plans . We went to second-hand stores to find dresses, and spent weeks adding extra lace and ruffles and discussing and fine-tuning our menu.
When our long awaited day had arrived, we filled our picnic baskets with fresh baked goods and headed for the cool forest and open fields of Southwest Missouri. We laughed as we pretended to have "grown up conversations." Then our thoughts turned to more serious conversations about how we would make a difference in the world and what we would do if we were granted three wishes.
Our futures stretched out before us like the first day of summer vacation – endless and filled with possibility. I still have the invitations we sent out, in my photo album : "You are cordially invited to attend a picnic at Apple of Amber Willow Waves, hosted by the Lovely Miss Leslie Dana."
I also remember getting on my bike early in the morning to meet a close friend of mine to go for walks along the country roads before it got too hot and humid. Many mornings the sky would be filled with long, trailing clouds. As the sun rose in the East the clouds would begin to fill with color.
As we walked along the dusty road we would make up stories about the clouds. "You see those clouds up there Angie?" I would say, "Those clouds are the path of the angels. That’s where the angels passed overhead at night while we were sleeping!" And then we would laugh and our minds would drift onto the next topic of interest–school, boys or what we would do with the rest of our summer day.
You can’t really put a price on memories like these – they’re invaluable. It’s so easy for us to forget the importance of quality-time and instead spend our income-earning years focusing on working harder so we can acquire costly furniture and remodels to make our houses look "just right," take expensive vacations, and buy the latest shoes, clothing, gear and equipment, thinking this is what will bring us happiness.
But it’s the moments rich with creativity and connection that feed our sense of happiness. Understanding this helps me reconsider how I spend both my money and my time.
Money helps us acquire the things we want. But time is really the most priceless commodity of all. Once time is gone we can never get it back.
There was a time in my life when my husband and I were working too hard, spending too much money and carrying way too much debt. We consciously decided to spend less money and create more time for having memorable moments that would feed us for a lifetime.
We were in the perfect position to feel enough " stress" that motivated us to make a change. We made a list of things that we loved to do that were affordable or free.
One friend emailed me:
"I think back on all the cheap things we did when I was younger: go to parks, rent movies, buy in bulk, cook for a month of meals, eat ‘dog food and cheese sandwiches’ (my husband’s description of the potted meat sandwiches we ate as grad students), drive instead of fly, wash our own cars, paint our own house, and rearrange our old furniture instead of buying new stuff.
I don’t regret a bit of it. In fact, it was fun much of the time. I guess you don’t have to be a millionaire to have ‘made it’; you just have to reach your own goals and feel that your own way of being is correct for you. My husband and I are not millionaires; we are debt-free, retirement-, disaster- and college-funded, and that feels like a million bucks to me!"
Live Richly Action Step
Take out a piece of paper, set your timer for one minute (or longer), and brainstorm a list of all the things you enjoy doing, that make your heart sing and that are free or very affordable. Maybe these are things you haven’t done in years. When you’re done, look at your list and pick one thing you’ll do this week.
And remember, "living richly" isn’t about the kind of car we drive, the house we live in or even the clothes we wear. It’s about authentically living our values – it’s about the lives we’ve touched and the memories we leave behind.
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