The "Arab Spring" is about hope and freedom of choice, peace of mind and ability to earn a living to fulfill one's dreams.
The good life is one Americans have had for many years, but what is the good life really, and how can we find it for ourselves in these difficult economic times?
What's your richest life? Have you ever thought about it? How would you describe the feeling of being rich? Forget money for a moment and think about how you would use your resources of time and money to create a rich life. For example, where are you and what are you doing? How are you feeling? What are you sensing? Take a snapshot.
Is it easy to know? Is it easy to feel? Can you picture yourself there?
Are you in a city walking and taking in the window art, museums, music and the great variety of good restaurants? Or are you in the country taking in the birds chanting, flowers blooming and the fresh clean air? Or is it both?
We all have our personal definition of "the rich life" but it's not as easy to conceptualize for some cultures, particularly Americans these days. When I ask the question, a common expression is a blank stare and an inability to articulate what feeling rich is like for them. They often retort "I'll have to think about that".
Good idea. If we don't know what it feels like and would look like, then we can't very well create it for ourselves. We might just fall into it but that's doubtful. So, like anything else, it takes knowing and planning.
It's been my experience that we have to look outside of money first and then calculate the use of money in planning our rich life. It's the importance of money, commercialism to be specific, that takes center stage when we think of being and feeling rich. We somehow don't get past that sense of rich -- rich in money and stuff -- to a definition of being rich in our sense of self or feeling fulfilled.
As an American, I might describe a rich life as the ability to buy my dream house with all of the latest gadgets and luxuries, or the number of high-tech gadgets I can buy for my family. In Germany, it may be the affordability of a fabulous education, clean air and affordable health care. While in France, I may feel rich because I have a two-hour lunch at home each day and six weeks of vacation. Our culture and our family upbringing certainly play a role.
In the very end, our personal decision is all that matters as long as we know ourselves and what truly will give us a sense of personal peace and fulfillment. After all, we already have choices and need not bear arms to do what we believe is most fulfilling.
But for me, my experiences in France for the past 15 years have given me another dimension by which to judge when and how I feel most fulfilled -- living richly. It's the ability to sense -- time slowing down and stimuli not bombarding the senses so there's a chance to really feel, sense what's there and what I value.
How could I possibly be talking about a richer life than I have in a place that most people would describe as paradise? I agree with those sentiments but for me, I've come to have a greater sense of self because of the rich life I've been able to live in a place where time slows down and people still behave as they did 50 years ago in the US. People come by without an appointment knocking on their neighbor's door to just see how you're doing; stores are closed for a couple of hours during lunch so people can eat what you choose to do with it is the most valued commodity and asset one could hope to reap from life.