Yesterday we were down at Ventura Harbor to support a dear friend at an event she was hosting. Part of the day’s activities included taking a one hour narrated harbor cruise which, no matter how many times you’ve done it before, is always a relaxing and fun treat. It’s just fun to get out in a boat on the glassy smooth protected water, listen to interesting harbor facts, a few dad jokes and bad puns as the tour guide keeps things interesting, and also cruise by big expensive boats and even more expensive waterfront houses. I suppose the attraction of staring at rich people’s stuff is all about dreaming of what it might be like to own a great big house, or two, and a great big boat, and imagining how exciting it would be if we were on the inside of that life, looking out our windows at the longing faces on the harbor cruise.

So as we glided by one of these big homes with its requisite big boat, it was in that spirit of—let’s call it wistful envy—that our tour guide made this comment …

“During the Holidays I do this tour at night when all these homes are lit up with twinkly lights. It’s beautiful. But the other thing is, at night you can see in those windows when these people are home and you can see what they’re doing. And you know what almost all of them are doing? Watching the idiot box! I mean, here you have this multimillion waterfront dollar home with a multimillion dollar boat parked right outside, and most nights most of these folks are doing what I do every night in my little house 23 miles inland from here!”

You could tell by the tone in his voice, he was incredulous, almost outright offended, at the thought of people wasting that wealth by doing normal things. Well, welcome to reality. You know the phrase, “the best things in life are free”? Guess what, it’s pretty much true. I remember when Tina and I were first getting started, finances were extremely tight. There were many, many, many days when a splurge would be getting a coffee out a coffee house instead of making it at home. And I remember we used to look at each other as we sipped our precious coffee and think about what we’d be doing on a day like this if we had millions of dollars and could be anywhere in the world we wanted to be. The answer was, we’d probably be sitting somewhere sipping a coffee together.

Now I know, it’s fun to dream about things that seem so foreign and fantastic. But I want to remind you, like I was reminded yesterday, that sometimes … no, not sometimes … often … those dreams distract us from the truth, that pretty much all the best things in life are free. You know who the people are who in my opinion are wasting their lives? The ones who are so often looking to get somewhere other than where they are that they miss out on most of the riches that right here, right now. It’s very, very likely that if you and I were in the big house we’d be watching TV. I know we would cuz Tina will not be missing her true-crime shows. Also … and please don’t tell anyone this … it’s very, very likely that the people in the harbor cruise boat outside, or the financially strapped couple just walking and talking as they sip their coffee, or anyone else who decides to stop looking elsewhere and contentedly embrace the moment they are in … it’s those people, not the ones inside the fancy house, that are probably having the most fun.

It might surprise you to learn I’m not a person of great ambition. At least not ambitions tied to material wealth. If I have ambitions they are simply to learn all I can, express my gifts as best I can, love all I can, and l most of all be as fully present for as many moments in this fleeting life as I can. What might the world look like if we were all fully alive and fully present in the present moment? I think we’d all discover just how rich we truly are. Because the best things in life are free. The trick is, you have to be there, where you are, contented and...