“Bags of gold are heavy.”

Heard this phrase the other day and it has stuck with me. The point was that even the greatest fortune (literally in this case) still has its downsides.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

This is really an idea about attention. We know logically that there is no possible way anything in our world is 100% upside. Not real estate, nor index funds. Not love, nor work.

But that doesn’t stop many of us from fixating our attention on what isn’t working. Some of us can get it to 95% upside and still don’t let that last 5% go.

So we are left with a decision. We can choose to focus on what is working, what is right, what is good, or we can choose to focus on how heavy that bag is. The subtle art is in knowing when to make the switch.