A few days ago I was having a conversation with a lady. She’s a struggling entrepreneur and she wanted to talk about her money-making plans for the New Year. We’ve probably had a similar conversation every year for the last several years. Whenever we talk it’s always about money and depression - specifically depression that results from the struggle to achieve financial success. As I listened to her talk I found I could not get as caught up in the urgency of the need to be rich as once upon a time. It dawned on me during my conversation with her that I’m no longer in that frame of mind where everything is about having millions and life seems less worth living because I don’t have the millions I want. It’s the sense of accomplishment that will come with achieving the goals I’ve set for myself that keeps me going these days, rather than a need to have a fat bank account.

My lady friend might well be chasing that sense of accomplishment herself, but to hear her talk, it would seem that her sole motivation is to get rich, and I found I couldn’t identify with her way of thinking that having millions will somehow make her more worthy. I appreciate that she wants financial freedom, that her idea of a good life is one of being able to spend a million dollars on a toy if she so desires; but I find it unfortunate that she appears to truly believe that she’s nothing without money and that people who have no money have no value or cause to think they’re worth anything or that their life is in any way interesting or noteworthy for other than negative reasons.

The differences between rich people and poor people are entirely superficial. You won’t find a poor person owning a private jet. You won’t find a poor person driving a Bentley. You won’t find a poor person owning a yacht. You won’t find a poor person staying in a $10,000 per night suite at the Ritz Carlton. Rich people can afford whatever they want, which was one of the main complaints my friend was making about her life. She can’t afford to buy a Valentino handbag for $1600 and that’s frustrating for her. She wants the freedom to be able to buy $10,000 accessories if she so chooses. And that’s the only difference between being rich and poor, having no choice in where you live, what you eat, how you dress, what you drive etc, and having the freedom to choose to live in a mansion in Beverly Hills or a condo in Manhattan, drive a luxury vehicle, chat on a $10,000 cellphone, adorn your wrist with a $50,000 watch, eat in exclusive restaurants, cruise around the world on a private yacht.

The difference between myself and my friend, I realized during our conversation, is that the lifestyle of the rich is what she craves. Her need to be rich has everything to do with image. For myself, the lifestyle is not enticing. I don’t fantasize about doing lunch with The Donald, or owning a private jet. I do fantasize about traveling with my family, relaxing in the comfort of our dream home, playing tennis with my spouse, going to Disneyland with the grandchildren I hope to have in another decade and being able to properly take care of my health and the health of my family. What I’m after is financial freedom and personal success, not status and prestige.

I generally prefer not to make too much fuss when a new year begins. My philosophy has always been that January 1st is just the day after December 31st and that life continues on from the day before rather than starting anew.

This kind of thinking has been useful in avoiding the heavy emotions that can often plague people at the end of the year, or rather, in reducing the weight of the burden of depression caused by listening to Auld Lang Syne and getting caught up in the atomosphere of nostaglia. When you have only memories of sadness and stress and frustration to look back on, the melody of Auld Lang Syne can often inspire you to consider adding your name to the list of New Year’s Day suicides.

To avoid unwanted sensations I’ve refused for the past decade to treat December 31st as being an end of something and January 1st a beginning; but today, January 3rd 2008, I woke up thinking to myself that maybe it’s okay to regard the new year as a new opportunity. It’s occurred to me that if I choose to look at it as just a continuation then I’m more likely to keep doing the same things I was doing last year, having the same thoughts and the same attitude that clearly were not productive and did not bring about success on a personal front or a business front. By separating the new year from the old I can let go of last year’s failures. I can wipe the slate clean and start sketching a new picture not with the mindset of continuing from yesterday but with a sense of just beginning. The difference will be one of thinking anything is possible versus doubting anything will be different today from yesterday.

Sometimes you need to give yourself permission to let go of something and start all over. For some people that means accepting that whatever they’re doing is not working, which can be difficult because it means to them that they’ve made a mistake. And some people can’t accept that they are capable of making mistakes. But being stubborn and unwilling to accept that something isn’t working only delays the inevitable. All you’re doing is robbing yourself of any possible chance at success, which makes no sense if success is what you’re after.