Ep. 160 - The Birthday Episode: Presents That Don’t Come in Packages

There are the things we can’t unwrap, but they carry more value than anything money can buy. Real richness comes from doing what you love, setting your own boundaries, and living life on your terms. Let’s take a moment to recognize them, celebrate them, and make the most of these gifts we give ourselves. 

Transcript

This last week, I celebrated my birthday–I mean for the entire week. It was full of friends, food, and fun—and as a gift to myself, I took a break—a real break. I set up an out-of-office message, I muted all those red-dot notifications, and I just released my brain from that hum of have-to’s. 

As I stretch into another decade, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to feel rich. Not in the financial sense, although I recognize and appreciate that security. But more in the richness of savoring time, connection, and fulfillment. 

The Bottom Line on Top of this episode is that the best gifts won’t be in a box, it’s in the pause to appreciate what can’t be wrapped. (and this is ironic of course, given how often Amazon boxes show up on my doorstep.)

During my low-tech week, I was catching up on reading and I came across a recent article by author Ryan Holiday. He’s written several great books and he has a great newsletter and that’s what I was reading. In it he was sharing that he struggles with what he calls “privileged impoverishment”—the experience of feeling poor in time, energy, or even peace, when you’re doing well by external measures. And it really resonated with me. 

I was in my mid-30s when I joined the dot-com world. I rose quickly at my big company and benefited from bonuses and healthy stock options. I had young kids at the time so mainly when money would come in it just felt like a transfer of math—I would deposit it in the bank and then dive right back into my overscheduled day. Around me, I saw much of the same - financially successful people in a loop of go, go, go and do, do, do. Sure they had fancy cars and took vacations, but were they rested or fulfilled? Not really - it was that privileged impoverishment that Holiday talked about. 

Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill—where we adapt so quickly to improvements in our lives that we’re constantly still running towards the next thing without feeling we’ve arrived anywhere. In this loop, even abundance can feel like scarcity.

We live in a time where anxiety is now a near, constant companion as we have our quest for currency. We’re thinking and doing but not really stopping to savor what we worked so hard to get. 

From a brain science standpoint, anxiety isn’t just a feeling—it’s a cognitive load. A full-body tax that drains our focus and our emotional reserves. Anxiety is what brain researchers call a “resource-intensive process.” It demands mental bandwidth, depletes attention, and, over time, impacts everything from our sleep to our social bonding.

Ryan Holiday talks about even with all of his career success and his financial security, he still finds himself rushing through airports or worrying about what could go wrong. And I really understood that. That sense of running a sprint in your head while your body is still trying to catch its breath.

Our brains are surprisingly bad at feeling satisfied. Thanks to something called a reward prediction error, we get a dopamine hit when we chase goals—but not necessarily when we reach those same goals. That’s why, in a world of endless social media posts and “hey, whats next,” choosing to enjoy the here and now becomes a radical act of wealth.

It’s a paradox: we work hard for freedom, and then we fill our schedules so tightly that we forget to actually feel free. And even though I teach and preach time management and energy management, I also know it’s not about squeezing more out of our hours; it’s about reclaiming how we use the time we’re already in. 

There’s a psychological concept called time affluence—(it starts with an “a”) it’s the feeling of having enough time. And that was my goal last week: time with no agenda. Delicious days that just unfolded on their own. In fact, on my actual birthday, I ended up having dinner at a strip mall dumpling restaurant because I was doing nearby activities. And it was fantastic - in part because it just happened versus spending weeks trying to get a reservation or get there on time and wrangling everybody up. Come as you are, when you are… and gosh what a lovely idea. 

Back to Ryan Holiday’s story. He said this: “anxiety, I’ve come to realize is a very expensive habit. It has cost me so much. A lot of misery, a lot of frustration, countless hours of sleep. It’s caused me to miss out on a lot of things that are important to me. How many family dinners have I ruined by letting my mind wander to what could go wrong? How many minutes of vacations have I missed out on because I was preoccupied, lost in spirals about things that hadn’t happened? How many opportunities have I passed up because I was too caught up in my own fears?”

That’s pretty powerful and its led me to this question I’ve been sitting with all week: What kind of wealth am I looking for, am I working for? Is it peace of mind? Room to breathe? The ability to say no to what doesn’t matter and yes to what does?

Yes to all of that, because the richest moments in my life haven’t come from purchases. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy my things–I do. But, I really, really enjoy them more when I’m present with them and with others. Like being able to sit outside on the porch when the spring sun just pops out for a quick visit, or sitting with a great friend splitting sandwiches and sharing stories, and wandering with my dog without hurrying back for a meeting. I stopped wearing a watch a couple years ago and it’s fantastic.

Instead of being on time, I’m practicing being in time.
I loved this line from Holiday’s article:
That moment of realization—that I could say no—changed my life more than any amount of money I ever had. That’s a step towards the life I want. There are people with enormous fortunes who don’t have that freedom.

Yes, so much yes to that. 

We don’t hustle for a number in an account somewhere. We hustle for the moment we don’t have to hustle. For the space to enjoy what we already have.

And yet sometimes, we forget and that’s human.

So this week, I’m inviting you to look around at your abundance. Enjoy your riches. Maybe for you that’s rest. Maybe it’s a long phone call with someone who knows your middle name. Maybe it’s the freedom to say “no thanks” without feeling guilty. Or the joy of saying “yes” to something that excites you.

Whatever your version of rich looks like, my hope is that you get to experience it more fully. The best investments and returns will never show up when we simply tally the math - they come from when we fully and freely find ourselves in the moment. 

Turns out, the richest thing we can spend is our attention. It’s the best way I’ve ever found we can take care to truly take good care.