Before it owns you.

Prosperity. Most people want it. Entire societies are built upon the search for it. It’s advertised on every wall, every billboard; it rings in our ears. But what does it really mean to be prosperous?
Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: prosperous

adjective

us  /ˈprɑː.spɚ.əs/ uk  /ˈprɒs.pər.əs/ successful, usually by earning a lot of money:

Prosperous is a very subjective term. Any subjective term is open to moving goal posts. If one decides to pursue prosperity in order to be happy, it will most likely be a lifelong quest.

Name it. Name the deepest desire of our hearts. Or maybe just name what caught our eye today. It can be anything except world peace. People have been naming that one for years and apparently it’s not on the approved list. Usually the list for naming is involved with material items that may or may not have deeper meaning to the quester.

Claim it. Believe deep in the soul that what’s been named is ours. It’s on the way. Because faith is what brings it to us. It is also understood that since this god of prosperity helps those who help themselves by greasing the wheels of the system. Donate, donate, donate; thereby increasing the probability of one’s faith accruing the strength and ability to create our own little paradise.

Now give it away?!

When do we feel prosperous?

We might feel prosperous for a short while as we roll in paper money on the floor like some character in a movie. We might also feel prosperous when we’re surrounded by glittering gold. We could feel prosperous when we get the biggest pile of cool stuff in our neighborhood. But that feeling of prosperity never lasts. We get bored swimming in paper money and the pile of stuff the neighbor has is now bigger than ours, or the whole apartment is glittering and now we need a place on the beach. We can’t catch feeling prosperous, or buy it. It’s an adjective, not a noun. That makes it a belief. Claim the belief that we’re prosperous and we will be.

When we acquire material things, we acquire new responsibilities and more material things to hold our other material things.

“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. ” George Carlin. Go watch his routine on stuff for a laugh if you haven’t already seen it.

We’re truly prosperous when we know what enough is, and can share the extras instead of attaining more that needs more to keep it safe.