Capital is a popular word with different meanings. The "Life Capitals" I refer to here are personal resources, money, assets, expenses, positive thoughts, faith, virtues, and life-long social networks. I will use ten life capitals to explain a new way to live a happy and satisfactory life without falling into the purely materialistic and the monetary trap. The ten life capitals are mindfulness, self-esteem, relationship, money, natural, intellectual, social, expertise, spiritual, and health capitals. Hopefully, the "Ten Life Capitals" are a realistic "Happiness Key" to help readers experience the best of all in life. How you deal with these ten capitals determines the kinds of life you are having now and will have in the future. Let's dig deeper into the ten capitals, one by one.
1. Mindfulness Capital
Mindful capital is the most critical asset for happiness. Mindfulness is the foundation to reach an enlightened and conscious state of mind. Mindfulness comes with the brave heart needed to face life's challenges and a genuine reason to accept one's shortcomings. The mindful consciousness requires a more in-depth understanding of oneself and the world with an open-minded and non-judgmental mind. Popular personality tests can only touch the tip of a person's natural intellect and soul. Increasing self-awareness and self-consciousness are essential and valuable journeys for everyone because they help those wandering souls to find peace. The more mindfulness capital you have, the more light and hope you hold in life.
2. Self-esteem Capital
Self-esteem means that you love yourself for who you are, not the person others want you to be. You accept yourself without any judgment or comparison to others. You are the special one, no matter how others see you or define you. It only matters how you see yourself, not how others judge you. Gratitude towards yourself is the most potent healing energy when you are overwhelmed. You should not focus on what you have lost or haven’t yet achieved; instead, you should appreciate how much you have already accomplished in your life at the present moment. Love and acceptance can boost your confidence and efficiency. Magical things usually happen to positive people, never with negative people. People with low self-esteem search for validation and recognition from others all the time.
3. Relationship Capital
The relationship is about family, love, and responsibilities. A relationship is not a choice but a truthful human destiny. Most people in life need to choose between family, love, and money. In most cases, people chose money instead of love and family. That is the root of suffering and emotional trauma. Yes, for a poor man, money is critical, and for a man with a broken heart, love is essential; for a homeless man, family is what he needs the most. Humans swing all the time to choose what they lack in life. Relationship capital is the learning curve and growing process for us to understand the importance of life. We already discussed that money cannot not buy love, happiness, or family, but a happy family and unconditional love can accumulate more wealth than imagined. Take care of your relationship capital with love and attention.
4. Money Capital
Yes, you need to have the "Just Enough" cash flow to live a sustainable life with prosperity and abundance. It is essential to have enough capital to cover all the expenses of your basic living needs along with extra funds to cover occasional vacations and entertainment. It is everyone's responsibility to save or invest wisely for monetary wealth and financial freedom. There is no excuse in depending on others or on society to provide you with the money capital for your life.
5. Natural Capital
Are you conscious about the environment you are living in today? Do you care about the natural disasters that happen to humans all over the world? Are you sensitive about the debts humans have caused to our mother earth? Do you worry about the pollution of the ocean, land, air, and human souls? Our ignorance of the environment and damage to nature has impacted humankind's lifestyles, living standards, health, and resources. Everyone must shift their ignorance to awareness of the environmental capital with commitment to preserve our natural resources.
6. Intellectual Capital
We live in an information era because we have an unlimited data source every day regardless of what we are doing. Everyone needs to have a knowledge of intellectual resources to manage the massive amount of news and data available to us through the internet. We need to read, interpret, nurture, and create this data and information to make our lives easier and better, no matter whether you have a college degree or are self-taught with personal skills. Exploring and discovering the unknown is everyone's duty to experience the life journey. Yes, we all need to have the wisdom and knowledge to manage our intellectual capital for our life cycle, personal treasure, unique architecture, creative learning, life inspirations, and forever heritage for our future generations.
7. Social Capital
We live alone, and we cannot enjoy our current life without our parents, loved ones, ancestors, and communities. We must be proud of our lifelines and paths to honor their creations, life stories, lessons learned, treasures left to us, and the historic assets from our past generations. We also need to cherish the neighborhood we live in now and participate in social activities and community events to accumulate our social capital. We need to learn the social skills of laughing together and crying together because we trust each other. Once we open our hearts, we can interact, communicate, create, and share life experiences. Loneliness is the poison to eat up a human's passion, faith, and trust in others. From our small social circle to the global arena, balancing the social capital is the key to world peace and mutual understanding.
8. Expertise Capital
Whether you have a degree in a particular field, or you have talent beyond your education, you must have a skill or expertise in an area to make yourself proud and satisfied. You can use your expertise capital to make a living with paid income or entertain yourself for self-fulfillment. Music, arts, poetry, sports, and crafts can showcase your incredible energy as a spiritual human to share with others the beauty beyond knowledge and physical forms. Reaching your potential to increase your expertise capital is vital for a happy life.
9. Spiritual Capital
Spirituality is more than religious practice, like Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Judaism, New Age Spirituality, Sikhism, etc. Spiritual capital is a much broader concept of a belief in something beyond oneself. It could be one of the religious beliefs or focusing on a higher source beyond the three-dimensional world. It can also be an holistic belief that is fulfilling an individual’s connection to the universe, others, and to the world. Spiritual capital refers to life with much more than what people see or experience with their naked eyes or physical bodies. Spirituality is the central part of the life journey for all humans. That is why spiritual capital plays a significant role in one's life.
10. Health Capital
Physical health is indeed the most critical capital for every human being on earth. Life will be a miserable journey and a harrowing experience without good health. It is absolutely everyone's responsibility to live a healthy life with good habits, positive thoughts, healthy lifestyles, and regular exercise.