What is your Bucket List

Last night I watched the movie, The Bucket List, with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Morgan played Carter Chambers, a scholarly mechanic with a loving wife and family. Jack was an irascible millionaire named Edward Cole with no personal relationships beyond the long term employment with his personal valet/assistant. The two unlikely friends met in the hospital where they had been paired as roommates, after both being admitted for treatment of cancer.

But this isn’t a review of the movie. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it, and won’t give away any more than that. Rather, I want to discuss the prosperity in each of those men’s lives.

On one hand, we have Edward, self-made millionaire who claims he started making money at the age of 16. His life is one of fast cars, lots of lovers, gourmet foods, gorgeous house, trips all over the world; in other words, the best that money has to offer. On the other hand we have Carter, a family man who gave up his dream to be a history teacher when, while in college, he found out his wife was pregnant, and instead became a mechanic so he could raise his lovely family.

Which is the most prosperous?

Edward has all of the money he could ever want, more than he could ever use, a jet-set life, and experiences galore. How many of us long for such a life?

Carter, however, has worked hard for every penny he has earned, and has a loving family surrounding him. His life is full of love and meaning. He has a strong spiritual faith and a solid, down-to-earth acceptance of life as it is. How many of us wish we had such an idyllic life?

Who is the richer?

Wholistic Prosperity is about having BOTH… about taking the values that mean the most to you and ensuring that they are solid in your life, AND about having enough money, not only to take care of what’s important in your life, but also to have more of the finer things that life has to offer. There is no reason why it needs to be one or the other. And yet, so often I have seen people striving for money to the detriment of their family life, or giving up on one’s dreams just to earn a buck to feed one’s family.

How often do people marry their passions to their money-making? How many people find a way to have it all? That is my challenge to you. Create your bucket list – the list of things you want to accomplish in this life, and find a way to do them AND make money at the same time. It IS possible, and you may find that your bucket is really a pot of gold.