Living in an age of abundance

I’ve worked for 5 billionaires in my radio career.

Each paid me well.

Still, each wanted more; more money, more influence, more homes, more planes…more.

Perhaps that’s what it takes to become a billionaire.

There’s a great line in a song by one of my favorite artists, Kathy Mattea:

“We roll by just like water
and I guess we never learn;
go through life parched and empty,
standing knee deep in a river, and dying of thirst.“

Here’s something life has taught me over the past couple of decades…

Billions won’t save you when you go to the doctor for those terrible headaches and find out you have a glioblastoma multiformae.

And billions won’t save you when you find out you have metastatic pancreatic cancer or stage IV metastatic melanoma.

Money won’t assuage grief when you lose a child, or spouse.

We live in an age of unprecedented abundance.

So much food available instantly, and 24 hours a day, that over 50% of us are obese.

So many things, we can’t find room for all of them in a 3,000 square foot home, and have to rent storage lockers, or pile them upon themselves in basements and crawl spaces.

So much money, yet it’s never enough.

I don’t think any of the billionaires I know read what I write, but I’m not writing for them anyway. I already know they don’t have a concept of enough.

I write for us, for me and you.

Look around you. Take stock of your life.

Are you healthy? Do you have access to health insurance and medical care?

Do you love someone who loves you too? Do you have someone who will celebrate your triumphs and comfort your losses and defeats?

Do you have shelter from storms and wind and cold?

Do you have faith to sustain you when your world is rocked by death and disaster and betrayal?

Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that more than enough?

Isn’t that reason enough to share?

Open your eyes. Open your heart.

She’s singing to us, standing knee deep in a river and dying of thirst.