sky to heaven - the invisible life.

I once spent nearly $3,000 to buy a rolex. It was three months of my salary.

I believed that a man’s most precious possession was his time – because how a man uses his time, reflects his life. Perhaps this is one reason why people say, “Time is money.” So I wanted to buy a good watch, so that I would always be reminded to cherish my time. I had never owned any kind of jewelry before, and I had never bought anything so expensive - so I splurged.

After I bought it, I wore it every day. My time was literally my money: $3,000 of it, right on my hand. And it was a terrific feeling – because it was a terrific watch. Sometimes I’d take a break during my day, and just look at it. In many ways, if I compared myself to the rolex, it was much better than me. The rolex would never be late, and it never needed to rest. It was nearly impossible to break, and it’d probably live much longer than me - and it would always look good. It was hard to believe that something so fragile as a human being could create something so nearly perfect and eternal as that watch. A lot of people would notice it and ask me, “What kind of watch is that? It looks really nice – and expensive.” After I told them, they’d go into shock. I didn’t have to show the watch off, because the watch showed itself off, all by itself. I enjoyed wearing that watch every day for three months.

And then one day, I lost it. I put it down for a moment, and the next moment it was gone. I looked everywhere for it, but somebody else had taken it. But no matter who or how, it was gone. It had disappeared from my life. Suddenly and completely.

That night before I went to sleep, I hung on to an irrational, impossible hope: that it would somehow return back to me the next day. That when I woke up the next morning, this would have all just been a bad dream - in my heart, I was hoping for a miracle. The next morning, I searched for it slowly and methodically, to give my miracle time to happen. I searched all over my room, my bag, my clothes, my bed, and even in places where I knew I had not been the day before.

But of course, the miracle never happened - only reality did. I sighed, and decided to go shopping that day to buy another watch… this time, a Swatch. As I rode the bus without the rolex, I felt almost naked – as if I’d lost an important part of me. A new watch was never going to be able to replace the rolex. I’d never be able to wear perfection on my hand again. I began to feel miserable and depressed. I started to criticize myself: I thought, “How stupid can you be?” “Maybe you don’t have it anymore because you don’t deserve it.” “Maybe your whole life will be like this – about getting precious things, and then losing them.” I only had it for three months. Three short months, and it was gone. One, two, three - gone.

And that’s when I realized something. Was I truly such a different person three months ago? No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t a better man or a better person because I wore a better watch. But during those three months, I felt as if I was – and that’s how powerful the illusion was. Wearing a better watch, made me feel better about myself. It made me feel like I was worth more. And if it could make me feel better about myself - that meant in some deep inner space of my heart, without even knowing it, I felt bad about myself. Perhaps that’s why many people often want better clothes, cars, and houses – because having better things will make them feel better about themselves. Because our things are valuable, we feel valuable.

But the more we use our cars, our clothes, our houses, and our other things to make us feel better about ourselves, the more dependent on them we become to feel good about ourselves - and to feel happy about our life. We sink to a state where we are no longer able to feel better about ourselves unless we have those better things. We get so used to having our things represent us, we begin to lose ourselves in our things. And when we eventually lose our things, we feel lost as well.

People looked at my rolex, and they thought certain things about me. Perhaps they thought I was rich, successful, or higher class - none of which I am. But whatever positive things they thought, I knew it was just an illusion. They were looking at the rolex, and it was the rolex that was making a good impression on other people - and not me. It was the power of the rolex and the power of money–not my power. And if I needed a rolex to make a good impression for other people, then how truly poor or weak I have must have been.

But I know that I am not the watch or clothes I wear, the car I drive, or the house I live in – and neither are you. I know this now, thoroughly and completely, because the rolex is gone – and I am still here. What we have within ourselves is so much more than what we own in the outside world. No matter how nice a rolex is, it can never love, have courage, realize a dream, create, improve itself, evolve, or live – but I can, and so can you. In losing something I thought I’d never want to lose, I gained something back I hadn’t even realized I’d lost - myself.