Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn:
Portrait of a Young Bachelor
(1634)

"…if Prosperity isn't destined to continually evade one's grasp."

Prosperity must be a relative state, one that depends on many factors to be properly gauged. Some find satisfaction with much less than others, while others’ desires seem essentially insatiable. However measured, Prosperity seems to embody an underlying sense of Plenty, however one might choose (or feel compelled) to define it. When I was twenty, I could fit my worldly possessions in the backseat of a classic Volkswagen Beetle, and I sometimes felt burdened by them. Later in life, I’d need a large moving van to fit my stuff, but I’d still feel as if I might not have quite enough. I have been in active deacquisition mode for several years now, figuring I do not need half the stuff I have acquired, so I feel hesitant to add to my already overburdening collection. This results in some absurd situations, like when I wear threadbare clothes because I cannot quite bear to buy better. If I already feel that I have more than Plenty, I don’t feel moved to pursue any more.

Acceptance seems to accompany Plenty. It might not signal satiation, just satisfaction. Plenty seems to accompany enough, the sense that can grant even a pauper equivalent to billionaire status. Indeed, Plenty and enough can render that pauper wealthier than many billionaires, who, appearances strongly suggest, seem incapable of experiencing either Plenty or enough. Few curses could more bedevil one than a tenacious inability to experience Plenty or enough, for the resulting pursuit must eventually seem endless, but only because it would be. It might be, though, that endless pursuit becomes the purpose, or replaces more tranquil purposes, if enoughness cannot be sensed, when Plenty goes absent. Perhaps the purpose becomes purposelessness then. I’m unqualified to say.

I consider my ability to get by to be my greatest superpower. I do not require ego-inflating toys to feel complete. I prefer smaller-scale gifts. Simple things. I consider these to be blessings. The satisfaction I feel after accomplishing a fresh mow on the lawn. The sense of accomplishment I experience when finishing a fresh story before dawn. My cat, Max, choosing my lap over his usual chair. Finishing a patch of long-procrastinated weeding. Sharing some passage from a book I’m reading with The Muse, and marveling at how well the author employs language. I figure I might be fortunate beyond measure that my Plenty rarely costs me more than time and a shred of my steadily shrinking attention span. I feel grateful that I have not organized my existence around the need to purchase expensive things to satisfy my delicate ego. Oh, my ego might be Plenty delicate as it sits, but it does not often require purchasing power to satisfy it.

Curiously, for me, absence often prominently contributes to my sense of Plenty. My sense of it seems easily overwhelmed. This week, The Muse and I entered a favorite Italian restaurant for an early dinner, only to find an annoyingly loud soundtrack overwhelming the background. I asked the waitress if she could turn down the screech a tad, and she replied that she couldn’t. She offered to change the tape, but the volume, she insisted, was fixed. We left. I insisted in return that I couldn’t possibly tolerate dinner served in that context. Her Plenty was more than enough for me. When there’s no success like excess, it translates into no sense of success when I encounter it. Excess doesn’t seem like Plenty to me, for Plenty sits between too little and too much. More than enough doesn’t even seem like enough to me, but an obscenity. Plenty’s a careful and continual balance for me.

Our economy seems to be based on a poisonous presumption that more must always constitute better. Other cultures carry different definitions of better besides more. Some cultures consider less to be better than more, and some consider a specific absence as superior to any presence, their Plenty being experienced as the absence of something. The absence of war might prove to be a reasonable example, yielding Plenty of peace in its place. Plenty seems intimately personal. It depends upon and, also, perhaps, defines a person’s experience. We might first learn about Plenty from our parents, who carried their own sense of Plenty with them throughout life. Later, we might choose to amend this initial setting, ultimately requiring more or less than we were taught. There are, apparently, no universally applicable principles where Plenty’s concerned. We sense what we sense, and we seem capable of learning to ascribe different meanings to familiar senses. What was Plenty for me at twenty grew to seem like not nearly enough. What later seemed like not nearly enough became downright burdensome even later, after I accumulated more life experience.

I mention Plenty because it seems inexorably entwined with the concept and practice of Prosperity. I’d suggest that we cannot experience Prosperity without feeling an accompanying sense of Plenty. If Plenty must be a relative state, it might not matter how any individual gauges it, other than that it might be more critically important that everybody possesses some deep sense of what constitutes Plenty for them, because Prosperity might remain tenaciously out of reach unless and until they experience that sense of Plenty; until that sense becomes something more than flightingly familiar. I’d suggest that Plenty might have to become an achingly familiar and regular experience if Prosperity isn’t destined to continually evade one’s grasp.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Prosperity, #PureSchmaltz