Anyone Feel Rich?

I listened to an episode of Hidden Brain on the NPR website this week while I cleaned my office. Many of you who are reading these words are wondering if I ever clean my office. I do, often on Mondays, and when I do, I often listen to some interesting and hopefully motivating music. By Wednesday, my office is a mess again.

This week I decided almost on a whim to listen to Hidden Brain.

I picked an episode entitled "Why No One Feels Rich: The Psychology of Inequality," also largely on a whim. It was a bit shorter than several of the other episodes, it was near the top of the menu, and the subject sounded interesting.

It had to do with the way that we judge ourselves. The subject matter was wealth, and whether we think we are wealthy or not. But the take-away for me was how we think of ourselves in almost all aspects of our lives. Are we successful in whatever way we choose to define success? Maybe it is about wealth, but maybe it is status. Maybe it is our looks. It could be anything we think of as defining us as successful or not.

Think of what you use to judge yourself. Is it your intrinsic worth? Is there some way to measure what you as a human are worth? Or is it your relative worth in comparison to others? The show made the point that no one feels rich because whomever we are, we are comparing ourselves with others. That type of comparison seems like many people would feel rich. After all, including myself, most Americans are within the upper few percentage points of the richest people in the world. According to the Global Rich List, an income of just over 32,000 American Dollars per year ranks one in the top 1% of earners in the world. Let that sink in for a minute.

http://www.globalrichlist.com/

That shows in a flash the economic disparity worldwide.

But most of us don't feel like we are rich. In fact, most of us feel, well, kind of the opposite. That's because, psychologically, we are pre-disposed to compare ourselves to people who are above us in our self-constructed ladders of success.

I recommend the podcast of Hidden Brain for details and statistics.

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/19/715145723/why-no-one-feels-rich-the-psychology-of-inequality

For reasons we don't understand, we compare ourselves to those we think are higher than ourselves and for that reason we always come up short. (Of course we come up short, because we choose to compare ourselves to people we think are higher up!) Maybe it is a good motivating factor for greater success. Or maybe it is part of the sinful condition of greed. Whatever it is, it causes us great stress, whether we are a high wage earner or not.

The stresses of this type of comparison rise greatly in societies where there is great disparity in income.

Is there a better measure? Of course there is. We know we are beautiful creatures. Those of us with the eyes of Christian faith believe that we are created in the image of the very God of the universe. Can't get better than that! And still we measure ourselves by standards we cannot reach. Even if we do reach them, we replace that standard with the next rung of the ladder, and see ourselves as lacking.

Of course, ambition to achieve higher goals can be good and motivating for success. But do we really have to beat ourselves up by constantly reminding ourselves that, in comparison to whomever, we are a failure?

To me, this is a byproduct of the myth of the American Dream. The myth is if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. It is similar to the myth of the modern Prosperity Gospel, if you believe hard enough and pray to God hard enough, God will give you whatever you want.

The flip side to those beliefs is, if you don't achieve whatever you want, that means you didn't work hard enough, or if you don't receive the wealth or healing or whatever you have been praying for, you haven't believed hard enough or prayed hard enough.

How damaging that type of belief system is. It demeans us. It causes us to doubt our self-worth, and maybe even slip into self loathing.

Can we find a new measure, one that affirms our worth no matter our number of dollars? Is it possible to see the value of the small in comparison to the huge?

I believe it is. Our worth is in God, the creator and redeemer of the universe. God has made us, loved us, sustained us. God is our source of worth. It is sometimes hard to even catch a glimpse in today's world, but it is there through the eyes of faith. Hopefully, that vision is daily forming more fully. And that's the view from where I stand.