How do we really measure how we're doing in life?

I suppose the easiest way to measure things is in terms of dollars and cents because they're nice and tangible and we can look at numbers on a page and say "this is better than that."

Much of the rest of life is a lot more subjective, and quite a few aspects of happiness (or contentment) come down to completely intangible factors.

I do believe that the old truism that "money can't buy happiness" is largely true because I don't think money makes anybody happy. I think what money can buy you is a measure of security, and security allows you to let go of certain aspects of anxiety and worry, as a result of which you are more capable of giving the time and attention to the practice and potential for becoming happy.

So I think a lot of those of us who are living on the more broke end of the living scale probably spend an inordinate amount of time looking at money because we understand somehow — perhaps inherently — that if we only had more money we would have fewer worries and if we had fewer worries we could actually do some of the things that we really wanted to do.

I think about the fact that if I had more money what would I do and the answer invariably has nothing to do with needing to rush out and buy a bunch of things, and a lot to do with securing my life in a way where I would have less stress in it.

I have never been a fan of so-called grind culture just for its own sake, nor have I ever been a fan of always being busy and never sitting still simply for its own sake.

The ostensible security that might come with having more money revolves wholly around being able to spend more time sitting still and focusing on the things I really enjoy doing, whether that be writing or doing other creative things.

In truth, I do really enjoy keeping a blog here on Hive, but I am a very sporadic blogger because I don't live a life in which I can spare several hours a day just to doing this and engaging with other people in the community and finding creative ideas to explore further.

And so, I stick to doing my little bits here and there and accumulating my pot just a few cents at a time.

And to be honest, I do get a nice little dopamine hit every time I'm able to take a little bit of my liquid rewards and invested in something that might earn me an extra two cents a month in passive income. In the greater sense of things it doesn't amount to much of anything, but at least I'm able to look at it and say "hey look, I made progress!"

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