We're Renting

🤔 A reminder from Old Blue Eyes

Photo by Nick Karvounis on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking of this statement from Frank Sinatra for about a week now:

“We’re renting.”

Talent manager Barry Katz tells the story of a time a woman waited for five hours near the back door of a music venue to see Sinatra. When he finally emerged from the club, the woman called out to him. But, no doubt used to this kind of treatment by now, Sinatra just climbed into his limo to leave. “What’s with that woman?” He asked a friend.

After finding out how long she’d been waiting, Sinatra got back out to meet her. The woman explained that her husband was really sick and she was just hoping to get an autograph to help him feel better. Sinatra obliged. But then he did something else. He took off his cufflinks and handed them to her as well. “Here, give these to your husband.”

Back in the limo, his friend asked, “What are you doing?! Those are your favorite cufflinks!”

And that’s when Sinatra dropped the line that’s been following me around:

“We’re renting.”

Huh?

“When I die,” he continued, “someone’s gonna be wearing my cufflinks. Someone’s gonna be living in my house. Somebody’s gonna be driving my car. Somebody’s gonna be spending my money. If I have something and I can’t give it away, then it has no value to me.”

What an insight. You might even say that if we have something we can’t bring ourselves to give away, it actually has us, which reminds me of a teaching from Sadhguru:

“What you accumulate can be yours but it can never be you.”

The terms of the lease vary for each of us, but may we all live in humility and appreciation in light of the truth that we’re all just renting. Freely you have received. So, freely give.

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