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OK, I'll admit freely: I would like to be very wealthy. Not because I value money for the sake of money, but because money lets you purchase the most valuable thing in the universe: time.
I would love to be able to teach just one class, just to keep my hand in. To spend the rest of my "work" time-- say, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and maybe Thursdays-- writing and studying Torah and reading and doing a little charity work...maybe even taking classes for more grad degrees, just for fun...all at my own pace, taking whatever breaks I wanted, whenever I wanted.
And for the rest of the time, I'd like to be able to travel. To take road trips all over the US and Canada, to take long extended cruises on the Cunard line (all other cruise lines pale before it), to go all over Europe and stay wherever I liked. And I'd love to be able to keep a house here in Venice CA, plus three apartments or small condos: one in New York, one in London, and one in Jerusalem.
I'm not talking about huge ostentation in the lifestyle. No mansions, private jets, fleets of cars, gala parties, and such. Just enough to work when I felt like, on what I felt like, and to go where I want, when I want, for however long I want, without ever having to worry about cost. And have some left over for charity and sending the kids to college....
Doesn't seem like too much to ask....
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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
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