Markets absorbed the shock, but the deeper tremor ran through people themselves. Across the world, signals that once promised certainty no longer held; the house of cards we had built as a society slipped apart, and we found ourselves standing there with our things, emotionally exposed. Luxury, for decades an unshakable pillar of aspiration, began to lose its meaning.
Suddenly everyone began to hesitate. Purchases once made instinctively were questioned. Conversations that once circled around novelty drifted toward safety, health, time and meaning. December, typically a season of glitter, feels unusually introspective. No one is swayed by Black Friday anymore. Consumers have nothing left to give. Many are no longer in a financial position to allow themselves any kind of excess, and a growing number of young people worry less about luxury and more about whether they will ever be able to afford a family of their own. A collective unease settled over this season, creating a pause no marketing campaign could override.
I began asking myself what I was truly looking forward to this holiday season. Was it a new object or the almost unremarkable comfort of being near family? Which moments feel like wealth, and which only imitate it? The answer found me while reading a recent essay in The New Yorker written by Tatiana Schlossberg, a young Kennedy heiress and mother of two small children who is confronting a terminal blood cancer at exactly my age. She wrote with a clarity that left little room for illusion. She may not see another winter.
The piece unsettled me in the way honest things do. It held up a mirror to the abundance I often take for granted: my health, my presence in the world, my small circle of people whose loyalty is not tied to achievement. None of this belongs to the vocabulary of conventional luxury, yet each carries a permanence no purchased object can rival.
The past two years were not simple for me. I moved through uncertainty that stripped away any illusion of control. I often spoke to God. I asked for direction, for clarity, for real and honest relationships. I asked for a form of wealth I did not yet know how to name. Somewhere along the way my steadiness returned. I understood that emotional resilience, detachment and trust in a handful of people form a truer prosperity than anything financial capital can accelerate.
Today I can say with gratitude that I am wealthy in the ways that matter. I finally consider myself a good mother. I know what I can give my child to help it grow into a secure, confident adult. I know which relationships nourish and which drain. I know that losing what is not meant for me is not a loss. I know that doors close so others can finally open. And I know that luxury, if it has any meaning left, begins with inner spaciousness and the ability to meet the world without fear of tomorrow.
This is the wealth I wish for you as well.
