Wealth without dineros

We are happy and wealthy! :)

Last Friday night when everybody was drinking and laughing, one of my Hungarian friends and I were sharing thoughts about the Filipinos' attitude of being blithe and carefree. Shee told me stories about working with Filipino people in Dubai and seeing them as happy people. We Filipinos do not take life seriously in a sense that we do not let our problems in life, no matter how serious it is, stand in our way to happiness. I was happy hearing positive things about Filipinos from a European point of view.  I don't know if she was just ingratiating or did not want to be tactless or just did not want me to be uncomfortable with her. However, there was something that she said that really struck me most.

Hu friend: In Dubai, I had a lot of Filipino colleagues who always laugh at things. They don't take life seriously, I don't mean the negative way, but even if they have big problems whether at work or at home, they still managed to smile or even laugh. When I asked them how are they, they always replied "I'm doing good" with a smile though I know that they were not really fine. 

Me: Yeah we just laugh out our problems. Life is too short to spend it on negativity and pessimism. Even though our country has never made its way to go out from poverty, we are still happy. 

Hu Friend: You know what, it really depends on how you define wealth and poverty. If you define wealth with money and earthly materials, then you are poor. But if you define wealth with natural resources and happiness in life then you are wealthy.

Most of us define wealth as a state of being rich in money, having a lot of luxurious properties, jewelries and other worldly things; while we define poverty as a state of having a little or no money at all or shall I say the exact opposite of wealth. I could not agree more with my colleague.Wealth can be achieved not solely by earning money but collecting happiness in life. Wealth and riches do not  necessarily appropriate great happiness, but the conscious decision to look forward to gratification and contentment. 

How about you? Who do you think is rich and poor? To which category do you belong? As I said, it really depends on you. Well for me, the Philippines is a rich country and the Filipinos are really wealthy! :-)