Mr. Everit's Secret

by Alan Cohen

Excerpt:

On the first day of summer, Mr. Everit invited me to his house to kick off the swimming pool season. The sun felt ever so good as we sat poolside, casually munching on a small mountain of nachos while Marlene floated aimlessly on a pontooned lounge chair, sipping a frosty margarita, immersed in Cosmopolitan. I was lost in a Dave Mathews CD on my Discman when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I pulled off my headset and sat up, to find Bert holding a copy of USA Today.

"You have to see this," he nudged me, handing me the paper and pointing to a small illustration of a yellow smiley face. "The newspaper did a survey asking highly successful people which came first: happiness or success?"

"And they didn't include me in the survey?" I asked, indignant.

He shook his head. "Well, there's no accounting for taste."

"Oh, alright . . . . What did they find?"

"Sixty-three percent said they were successful because they were happy. Thirty-seven percent said they were happy because they were successful."

Hmmmm. "And which category do you fit into, Mr. Everit?"

"It's a no-brainer," he answered, pausing to down an especially hot chip. "If your happiness depends on success, any little setback will plunge you into upset. Then you bob up and down like a cork on a squally ocean." He made a funny bobbing motion with his head and curled his lips as if he was woozy. "People who decide to be happy no matter what the stock market is doing, find all kinds of things to feel successful about-and attract more." Then he shrugged his shoulders and stated, "I don't need any more money . . . I have enough."

His statement jarred me; I'd never heard anyone say they had enough money. Even the wealthiest people I know always need more. Some of the few millionaires I've met were bigger whiners than people on food stamps. It seems that people who think they don't have enough, never get it, and people who think they have enough, never miss it.

"You're really satisfied with what you have?" I asked, incredulous. "Don't you want to get richer?"

"I'm already rich," he answered authoritatively. "In fact, I'm the richest man in the world."

What? "Oh, come on, now, Mr. Everit, I know you have a few bucks in the bank, but you're no Bill Gates or Oprah."

He smiled. "Of course I'm no billionaire. If you define riches by money, I'm just an average Joe. But if you consider the immense good in my life, I am loaded. I have a loving wife . . . a fulfilling job . . . friends I laugh with . . . magnificent sunsets . . . inspiring books . . . music that feeds my soul. Sure, I have my challenges, but they help me get stronger. If I start to go into a funk, I remember how blessed I am, and things shift. And now you're here. What more could any man ask for?"

He leaned back and took a deep thoughtful breath. "No sir, Bill and Oprah don't have a thing over Bert Everit," he declared. "When it comes to true wealth, I'm richer than a king."

There was not a thing I could say to that. Bert Everit had found the riches so many seek, but so few find. I began to consider that I, too, might have enough without even realizing it. Maybe I was doing better than I thought.

He read my mind again. "'Enough' is not a number or condition to be attained," he explained. "It's an attitude you cultivate. Most people go to great pains to decide how they will invest their money, but think little about how they are investing their thoughts, which are more crucial. They spend most of their attention on the one thing that went wrong, and overlook the thousand things that went right. They don't realize that you get more of whatever you focus on."

"So everyone on the planet is living in their own reality, and we all just keep finding evidence to prove what we believe?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself," he echoed, passing the nachos toward me.

Okay, I got the idea. "But if everybody just accepted everything as it is, we'd never get anywhere," I argued. "There'd be no striving for improvement. Isn't it important to stretch for more? To set goals beyond your current level of attainment?"

"Exactly! Just don't be disappointed if you never get everything done. On the day you die, you will have e-mail in your inbox."

Now there was a sobering thought."