I don't care if you're wealthy or not, but I deeply desire you to live a rich life. If you want a hint on where to start, look at the people you surround yourself with.

But then, my family got uninvited. My friend, who is clearly a jerk, told me I'm not allowed to come now. Can you believe the audacity?!?!

In the last paragraph, I included the following sentence: "I'm excited for this holiday season, but as always, I'm nervous I'll find a way to screw it up." That was a tremendously foreshadow-y quote, considering that my life was dramatically altered just hours after I published that piece.

I recently read an article about how, at the time of publishing, the world's richest man fell ill and quickly passed away at a fairly early age. He was in his 40s. The spirit of the article was his friends and family acknowledging that none of that wealth really meant anything. He was gone, forever.

About a decade ago, a casual friend approached me and asked if I would help him and his wife "build wealth" so they could retire in their 40s and "finally enjoy life."

"I'll show you, but that's not the solution to your problem."

Isn't it crazy how separated we are in today's culture? It almost feels like we live in factions, constantly droning on about how different we are from "those people." And the funny thing is that "those people" are our co-workers, neighbors, friends, and even family. Everything is so divisive. We've been conditioned to believe that the other side is dumb at best, evil at worst, and we should hate them for it.