The Only Thing of Value You Will Ever Own

By Ron Ross

The only things of real value that you will ever own are your relationships.

  • You can own money – but money without friendship is the most unbearable poverty.
  • You can own a big home filled with beautiful furniture and a mountain view, but without someone to share the scenery and warm your bed, it is just another empty house.
  • You can own a big jet that can fly you to beautiful places with white-sand beaches – but if there is no one to share the miles with or no one with whom you can watch the sunset it is nothing more than a lonesome ride to a deserted island.
  • You can own several post-graduate degrees from the world’s finest universities, but knowledge, important as it is, shrinks in consequence if you have no one to love.
  • You may have significant power over others because of position or title, but when the position or title is lost, you will long for someone to help you endure the pain of your loss.
  • You can have popularity with masses cheering you and the Glitterati looking on with envy, but if no one really knows you, really understands how you feel, or cares a whit what you think, then your popularity will only temporarily feed your ego but never alleviate your aloneness.
  • You can have a nice car to drive and reservations at the finest restaurants, you may be all dressed up and ready to go, but if you have to go alone, why bother?

 

It’s not the stuff you own or the trophies you win; it’s the people you know and the friends you grow that give life meaning. Real joy, real ecstasy is found in the personal bonds of comradeship that come from time spent together, battles joined, and conversations held that go deeper than common clichés and meaningless facts.

No person on a deathbed ever asked to hold a trophy one more time, or review their awesome resume, or peruse a bulging financial portfolio. He or she asks instead for the people they love and who love them.

If you lose all your money, yet someone loves you, the financial loss is bearable. If your beautiful home with all its furniture burns to the ground, but there is someone beside you ready to help you rebuild, you will survive. If you have someone to share your life with you, don’t have to travel to exotic islands for a romantic night out – a picnic on the living room floor can be just as good and even better.

When you make a mistake, what do you need? You don’t need someone to point out your flaws and ridicule your stupidity you need someone to stand beside you and help wipe off the egg on your face, or bail you out, or bind your wounds. You need someone who will, for all the stupid things you’ve said or done, offer you their gentle forgiveness.

You need someone to be rich with and to be poor with, someone to laugh with when you’re happy and cry with when you are sad. You need someone who will stay with you whether they are sick or healthy, weak or strong; a success or failure and someone to be there when, you breathe their last breath, to whisper in your ear, “I love you.”

 

© 2019 Dr. Ronald D. S. Ross. All Rights Reserved

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