Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Would I feel wealthier if I decreased my wants?

I’ve long ago abandoned the idea that “wealth” has anything to do with money.  I’ve always had enough money to be comfortable, thanks to my parents, and I’ve never really prioritized having more than that.  My priorities have always been things with meaning–education, books, creative hobbies, and things done with friends.  And while I certainly have a few wants that are beyond my means, they don’t control my life;  they’re much more of the wistful “if only” kind of thing.  

And right now, my wants are things I literally cannot do.  So, as the meditation puts it, the focus has been on wanting what I have.  This is why I’ve spent so much time embroidering things.   I’m not sure whether, once there is some semblance of “normal” back in the world, I’ll continue to work so intensely on these projects–although I’m developing quite the habit now, which I can’t see breaking.  (I always had needlework projects, to be honest–they just were not usually things I had designed.) 

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Windows 10 upgrade running tonight after work on the work laptop.  It completed after a couple of hours, and then I couldn’t seem to get the VPN adapter to recognize my home network.  Spent about 15 minutes on the phone and restarted a couple of times.   My computer wasn’t sensing an internet connection, even though we reset the Wifi (forgotten it and logged back in) several times.  Next step they suggested was to restart my modem, but I had Toastmasters to get to.  Afterwards, waited for a bit while Dave finished up on the XBox and we rebooted the router (the modem is more of a pain, so we decided to do the easy one first).  Didn’t look like it was working, but then I started the VPN connection and success!  Glad I took care of that tonight before what I suspect will be a deluge of calls tomorrow morning.

Just listened to Q talking to Serj Tankian for the second time today, so here’s the song they played.  I’ve always liked Tankian’s rather intense voice and should probably listen to more of his stuff.   After that, I’ll listen to the last two movements of Shostakovich 10–or maybe I’ll just start that one over since I was preoccupied with the computer before.