What Makes You Rich?

The world has created a theory that the more friend requests you have, the more people that retweet your 140 characters, or the more likes you have on that one selfie you took while bored at work, those are what make you rich.

Well the reality is, that’s just a bunch of crap.

For full effect, download “In Da Club” by 50 Cent, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

Yesterday I woke up, had two bowls of Reeses Puffs, watched Sportscenter for twenty-eight minutes, and drove out to Coral Canyon Golf Course where I met up with an old buddy from that one two-year trip that Mormon guys often brag about for extended periods of time. This man has value to me. He is a good, nay, great fellow. He is someone who I admire and respect, and for three hours we drove around in triple-digit temperatures and double-bogeyed hole after hole not really caring about our handicaps, but more about how each other are doing in this crazy thing that philosophers call “life”.

You can’t play nine holes like that on Instagram.

As I drove home, I pulled out my phone and called an old college buddy who I have spent many hours watching Jazz basketball games with, and someone who shares the same passion for higher education academics as I do. We talked, and laughed, and mocked lunatic professors walking around naked on campus just because they are tenured. We discussed why having the chance to live in St. George just might be worth taking a $9,000 pay cut. He told me about his kids, how they are growing faster than a patch of bad weeds, and we shared our multi-dimensional perspectives on how we think our career paths are going to turn out.

You don’t have conversations like these over Twitter.

When the conversation ended, I got into a car with three outstanding people and drove two hours south to the desolate town of Primm, Nevada. We told stories of legendary figures from our college lives. We rode rollercoasters with rednecks and took selfies on the 225-foot opening drop. We walked around abandoned outlet malls and spent money on things we don’t really need. We drove out to Henderson and gorged ourselves on deep fried macaroni balls, avocado egg rolls, and chicken Madeira, complaining about how high-class restaurants don’t have the decency to serve us butter tablets they just pulled out of the freezer.

Me: “I mean seriously, why can’t they just warm them up for 10 seconds? It drives me nuts!”

Chris: “You’re right, there are kids in Nigeria who don’t even know what butter tastes like. #cheesecakeworldproblems”

You can’t have improvised laugh sessions over meals like this on Facebook.

Later, as the dining was coming to an end and our zippers were clenching their teeth trying to hold our pants together, we talked about how sitting in that restaurant debating in our minds whether or not we wanted to spend the $4 on a Vanilla Coke, that proved we were wealthy. The fact that we had the ability to spend money on Nike running shoes and American Eagle dress shirts and not worry about the financial repercussions put us in the top 1% of the world. Heck, because we had the opportunity to go on random road trips like this without worrying about selling off our kidneys to pay for it, that truly showed we were rich.

No, 9-rounds of golf with former mission brothers, cross-country phone calls with associate college professors, road trips to Nevada to ride roller coasters and complain about frozen butter tablets, those are things that make me one of the richest people alive, without question. 

Those are things that money can’t buy.