Posted by Click here to get a free newsletter Zen and a Way of sustainable prosperity: Balance, financial success, and sustainability with the secrets of the Japanese Omi-merchants.
Last week, I said, how we defined success set ZENWSP apart from other motivational success philosophies. This week let me share how we define success in detail because without having a clear idea of what success is, it is easy for us to drift away and not to get our outcome.
Yesterday, I said that you wanted to aim to earn enough to live comfortably, but not to aim to chase after big numbers, to be truly successful and happy. In this way, you can share the wealth with others, and you can develop a better relationship with your friends.
Today, I would like to talk about another aspect of being truly successful and happy, which is to be living a rural environment.
First of all, I don’t consider people living in a penthouse suite in a high-rise condo in a big city to be successful no matter how much money they earn. Don’t get me wrong, I am not denying their lifestyle, if they want to do it; that is their choice. All I am saying is that I don’t regard them to be successful people.
If you understand coaching, you know what I mean. You are familiar with a concept called Circle of Life, right? It is a measurement to look at your balance in each area of life such as finance, health, relationship, family, environment, spirituality or life purpose, and so on.
When I look at a lifestyle of living in a condo in a big city, it seems difficult to fulfill all areas. Another word, it isn’t a balanced way of living. Unfortunately, there are many people who claim themselves to be coaches introducing one-sided lifestyles, a lot of people are getting wrong ideas about coaching.
In ZENWSP, we take the circle of life seriously, and being successful means to be holistic; having a balance in all areas. There are seven elements of sustainable prosperity to be exact. One of them is living in a sustainable environment.
I don’t regard money to be the only wealth; the wealth means food, water, energy and other things we need as well. In the present society, money seems to have the mightiest power since we can buy everything with money, but we don’t know how long this system will last.
The capitalism we have been experiencing has been around just about 100 years. Before that most people lived self-sufficiently. To think about sustainable prosperity, it is risky to rely on a system which is relatively new and may not last much longer.
And to have access to this material wealth, it is so much easier if you live in the countryside. You can do a roof top gardening or hydroponics in the city, but from the Permacultural point of view, it isn’t efficient since you have to bring soil or water from elsewhere. Why do you want to go through all the trouble to maintain a city life, when you can just move to the countryside. In the long run, it is much wiser to shift our lifestyle from urban to rural and develop a new model such as a Satoyama city.
The size is another factor. In the countryside, you can build small scale businesses, schools, and communities where you can have a deeper bond with other people.
The fact that a rural life can link you to nature is another significant element to be wealthy. You can bring up your children surrounded by forests, rivers, rice paddies, vegetable gardens, and the sky filled with stars, which is essential in holistic education. How you raise your off-springs determines your level of success. By being in touch with nature, you can be a holistic person yourself who has an ecological perspective to sustain the world. It is vital in our evolutional process.
For me, a successful person is intelligent and evolved so that he or she aims to create a more advanced society taking many elements into consideration while achieving his or her own outcome.
Instead of thinking I want to live in a penthouse suite because it is a status symbol of the wealthy, a successful person thinks I want to create a new model where many people can benefit, and the society as a whole can evolve.
Omi-merchant's way of Sustainable Prosperity 
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