Poor or Rich, A Princess Is Always A Princess

There’s a beautiful scene in the movie, A Little Princess.

Stripped of her privileges by the mean Mrs. Minchin and consigned to a musty attic and practically starving, the heroine, Sarah Crewe awakens to see a sumptuous, steaming hot banquet laid out in sterling before her, manifested from the chilly air.

Instantly, she is rich again, or perhaps she is richer than ever before. Having suffered humiliating privation has given Sarah depth and sensitivity that might have remained latent had she not struggled to survive.

This poignant and surprising scene, this respite from ruin, is filled with questions. One of them is: What makes us rich?

Sarah slept a pauper and awakened to splendor. Did her repose cause this blissful result?

In literature and in psychological archetypes, sleep is a metaphor, standing for a period of incubation. It says we need to be surrounded by darkness before being aroused by the light. A period of inactivity, dormancy, is the precursor to arousal and rising to greatness.

Through deprivation, we earn our redemption of abundance. Being empty is needed before we can be full.

Most heroic stories follow this sort of narrative.

The weak or poorly functioning protagonist is reluctantly called on to make a journey, in which she encounters multiple obstacles, her character forged, put on trial by fire, and challenged, repeatedly.

If she accomplishes her goal, she wins the day and possibly becomes a legend. Even if she fails, she does so with full commitment and possibly selfless sacrifice, and prevails through a noble failure.

We have an everyday sense of what it means to be rich. Money in the bank, lavish estates owned and manicured by others, titles and miscellaneous other holdings and perquisites—these are the earmarks of being rich, correct?

Not so fast, while wealth managers might identify these assets as desirable in their pursuit of clients, what we’re searching for in these pages is not only that.

We’re looking at sleep as a purposeful void, an absence of affluent articles, tangible trinkets and other fêtes and fetters.

Sleep is the container that we allow to shape us and prepare us for regular consciousness. It is a mold. If broken or cracked, it fails to provide us with the cohesion needed to face everyday waking realities and challenges.

Did the banquet make The Little Princess rich?

Was it by way of being provisioned, suddenly supplied with a surplus of goodies, too many to consume right away, was this the signature of sinecure, of success?

One of the ideas that we consider here is that you are, as she was, already rich.

Being unaware of this fact makes you unconscious. You’re the sleeper, needing to be awakened to your actual status. The banquet is an outer manifestation, a materialization of the wealth you have inside of you.

She was a Princess, and called such by Mrs. Minchin who had previously admitted her with open arms to the private girls’ school Minchin managed. This was when the student’s affluent father paid tuition before he was conscripted, then went missing in action and was presumed dead, in World War I.

Mrs. Minchin mocked her with the same moniker, “Princess” when the young lass was penniless and required to scrub the school floors, to earn her keep as a mere laborer.

But there was something in the girl, deep empathy, or what we would today inadequately call emotional intelligence, that made her an informal leader; one looked up to by her privileged peers, even as she toiled in tatters in front of them.

We come to see that it is the intangible qualities that are a wellspring of wealth.

Sleep is the cocoon in which these precious sensibilities are given the opportunity to accumulate. The boast of the honest, the moral, the humane individual comes to mind when he or she says, “At least I can sleep at night.”

The person who cannot sleep well may be haunted by feelings that he or she is not living rightly. Sleep is the calculator that tallies the daily receipts from our waking experiences.

If our feelings don’t balance, like numbers that don’t match, there is a price to be paid. There is a cost.

Some researchers speak about the idea that we can incur “sleep debt.” If we don’t get our solid share of rest, usually seven to nine hours per night, we are faced with an emotional, intellectual, and physical deficit.

If our sleep debt grows worse, with continuing mismatches between our required rest and our actual rest obtained, we wear down and ultimately break down.

Scientists have said the absence of sleep is a greater threat to our well being than the absence of food. We can survive longer without food with less damage to ourselves than we can by going without sleep.

Can a person, perennially in sleep debt, or frequently in and out of it, be considered rich?

I say no.

My dad knew a fellow who lived in a modern palace, who was fond of boasting about his money habits. One day he pointed to a table that contained savings passbooks that tallied his bank balances.

“See those over there?” he asked. “There are 100 savings books with $10,000 in each of them,” which at the time was the amount the federal government would insure.

Quickly, my dad calculated he was looking at a million dollars, available in cash, upon demand to this fellow. In those days, this was quite a sight.

I’m here to say if that man slept fitfully, or less than his appropriate amount, as informed by his native predisposition, he wasn’t rich.

Rich, in my lexicon equates to being at peace.

In the middle of the Princess’ suffering, despite her fall from financial grace, she slept with the angels, who ultimately rewarded her with the ultimate gift, the return of her lost father.

So, as I’ve said a few times, you are rich now, right now, at this very moment. Not knowing it is the cause of suffering, a symptom of which may be fitful or insufficient sleep.

If you believe going sleepless, pulling what students call all-nighters, is necessary to grow wealthy, you’re wrong.

Feeling lousy makes you feel impoverished. And from this cranky, groggy, listless, and resentful emotional place it is supremely hard to become materialistically rich.

Let me say it this way. “Poor today, but I’ll be rich tomorrow!” isn’t a practical prescription for happiness, in spite of the fact that some psychologists say postponement of gratification is a sign of maturity.

It didn’t work for me. After years of self-denial and sacrifice I reached the financial plateau that I had set out to scale. My reward was a deep feeling of emptiness, an anti-climax.

I realized it wasn’t my personal balance sheet of holdings that equaled wealth or the baubles and status objects I had and could yet acquire. My wealth resided in my self-confidence, my grit, my willingness to challenge myself, and my craving for lifelong learning.

I was rich long before I was rich, and it was being rich already that made me rich.

Ironically, when I translated this into objective, materialistic targets, into terms that were universally verifiable instead of remaining internal, intrinsic, and intangible, I missed the mark.

Let me repeat, “Poor today, but rich tomorrow” doesn’t wear well and isn’t a recipe for sustained success.

“Rich today, rich tomorrow and always rich!” is a far better perception of what wealth is. You don’t need to go get it. You need to stay and have it.

All you really need is your sleep and the values that effortless, refreshing and rewarding repose reflect about the overall life you’re living.

Your marching order is: feel-rich-now. Give yourself the pleasure and tranquility of appreciating that wealth is in you.

Before long, it will probably surround you, as well.