“There are some four million different kinds of animals and plants in the world. Four million different solutions to the problems of staying alive.” – Sir David Attenborough
In her most recent novel, Orange Prize-winning author Madeline Miller describes two fictitious gods talking to each other, the older one explaining to the younger one about these mysterious things called humans.
He describes them as each unique, yet all bound by their desire to reach and reach and reach although ‘everything slips from their grasp’. They are all going to die, yet each one keeps on eating and sleeping and dreaming and loving and breathing each day, knowing death will come for them.
‘How do they bear it?’
‘As best they can.’
Some days it’s easy to feel like Miller’s description – just going through the motions of life while we have it. But actually, there’s more to it than that. Beyond just existing and the eating and sleeping that goes with it, there are a million ways to thrive. That’s our goal for you at WellsFaber – to take you from survival to thrival!
If we look beyond humans to nature, there’s a very reassuring story to see. Although we tend to think of ‘life’ as the work presentation we haven’t yet finished, our lousy night’s sleep and family matters, life is actually happening in myriad, glorious, perfectly-ordered ways, from the orchid on your desk to the tree outside to the ocean and the endless flow of the seasons. Life is happening successfully. Right now.
It’s a comforting thought – there are four million different ways to thrive out there. It doesn’t necessarily look like getting that promotion, being a perfect parent or losing weight.
If we think about what Attenborough says, of life as a ‘problem’ that you are uniquely equipped to solve in a way no other organism can, it poses some exciting perspective. In general, we need to spend time understanding the problem in order to find a solution. How well do you really understand your life?
One of our goals at Wellsfaber is to help you ask questions that you may not think of on your own, questions that will help you find your unique solutions to thrive. Having a partner, someone to help you evaluate and stick to your solutions, is key to making life worth living.
It also means that there can never be a one-size-fits-all solution, or a quick way to work towards a solution that will work best for you.
Speak to one of our financial advisers about how to get your life thriving in a way that looks like you.
After all, life is for living. Let’s find your solutions together.