During a recent session with a client, we covered an array of topics from changes in scientific thinking about consciousness, to global disease, to what it takes to be content in life. The discussion took me back to my days as an intern.

It was a financial struggle to provide for myself and my daughter on an intern’s salary, but we had found a small cottage to rent for a very reasonable price. It sat on a dead end street at the edge of the woods on a two acre field. I would often take my cup of coffee to my lounge chair on the porch and enjoy the songs of birds and the dance of the sun on the grass through the leaves of the large maple. Each morning the thought would occur to me that the richest person in the world could not feel more content than I did at that very moment.

Eventually, my client and I proposed that a rich person who wants even more than he has will never feel rich enough, and a person who has contentment will feel wealthy regardless of the size of his bank account. These ideas are not new or profound, perhaps, but I am grateful to my wonderful client for helping me recall that sometimes a good cup of coffee and a lounge chair on the porch are all you need to feel wealthy.