A letter on wealth, poverty, and the peace no bank account can buy.
I hope this message finds you in the best of spirits and health. I pray that your family is well, that your home is full of laughter, and that above all, you have peace. Peace is the thing I find myself praying for most these days — more than money, more than success, more than any of the things I used to chase. I wanted to write to you today because something has been sitting on my heart, and I think it's a lesson worth sharing.
Growing up, I used to believe that money would be the key to my happiness. I thought if I could just get enough of it, everything else would fall into place — the stress would disappear, the worry would disappear, and I would finally feel like I had “made it.” I experienced what you might call “American poverty.” I distinguish it by calling it American specifically because when I traveled the world, I experienced true poverty — poverty in the material sense, the kind you read about but don't fully understand until you've seen it with your own eyes.
Walking through the slum villages of India and the villages of Gambia, I saw people living with almost nothing. No running water in some places. Homes made of tin and mud. Children playing in dirt roads with no shoes on their feet. By every metric we use here in America to measure poverty, these people had it far worse than anyone I grew up around. And yet, I found myself asking a question that I couldn't shake: why are they so happy?
I watched grandmothers laughing with their neighbors over pots of food they were cooking together. I watched children turn a torn piece of rubber into a soccer ball and play for hours, screaming with joy every time someone scored. I watched families sit outside in the evenings, just talking, just being together, with no television, no phones buzzing, no distractions pulling them away from one another. There was a warmth in those villages that I hadn't felt in a long time, maybe ever. And it forced me to confront something uncomfortable: that all my life, I had been measuring the wrong thing.
They taught me a valuable lesson, one I don't think I could have learned any other way. We may be “richer” here in America — we have bigger homes, more cars, closets full of clothes we don't wear, refrigerators full of food we don't eat — but we are void of peace. We are always chasing “things,” and that chase causes us to always chase the shadow of discontent. No matter how much we accumulate, it's never enough. We buy the house, and then we want a bigger house. We get the car, and then we want a newer model. We climb one rung of the ladder, and instead of feeling satisfied, we just see the next rung and feel like we haven't arrived yet. We are never grateful for where we are, because we're always looking at where we're not.
I realized that even though the people I met had “less” than us, in actuality they had more. Why? Because they had peace. Because they were content. Because they were grateful for what was in front of them instead of anxious about what was missing. That is a kind of wealth that no amount of money can buy, and it's a kind of wealth that too many of us here have never known.
My prayers have changed because of what I saw. I don't pray for money anymore. I pray for peace. I pray for contentment. I pray for the ability to be grateful in the moment I'm in, instead of always reaching for the next thing. And when I really sat with that, I realized something else: the best times I had in my entire life weren't the times I had the most money. They were as a child, growing up in neighborhoods that were rich with families who supported each other — neighbors who would feed you if your own family couldn't, who would watch you if your parents were working, who treated the whole block like it was one big family. Friends who were creative enough to always find something to do, even when we had nothing. We were never bored. We made games out of anything — a stick, a bottle cap, a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. We didn't need things to be happy. We had each other, and somehow, that was always enough.
This “American poverty” is an illusion, and it's a dangerous one. It makes you believe that you are less than, that you are behind, that you are lacking — and that “things” are what will finally make you valuable, finally make you whole. But that's a lie. Your heart, your character, how you treat others — that is what makes you valuable. Not your bank account. Not your title. Not the brand names you wear or the car you drive. True poverty isn't the absence of money — true poverty is bad character. It's ungratefulness. It's rude behavior. It's taking advantage of others to get ahead. It's stepping on people on your way up instead of lifting them with you. Sounds like the American way, huh? We've built a culture that measures success by accumulation and calls it wealth, when so much of what we're accumulating is empty.
I urge you and your family to travel, if you're able to. Not for vacation, not for the pictures, but so you can expand your mind and your perspective. Go somewhere that will humble you. Go somewhere that will remind you what actually matters. You'll come back looking at your own life differently, I promise you that. You'll walk back into your house and see how much you already have, instead of what you still don't.
Here's the truth: you can choose to be rich or poor right now, today, regardless of what's in your bank account. It's all about how you see the world. You can have very little and still feel like the wealthiest person alive, if your heart is right. Or you can have everything and still feel empty, if you're chasing the wrong things. I've seen both, and I know which one I want for myself and for the people I love.
I don't wish things for you, my friend. I wish you peace. I wish you gratitude for all of the blessings you already have — the people in your life, the roof over your head, the health in your body, the breath in your lungs. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things that last. Everything else is just noise.
Peace.
— Basheer Jones
