Now I Know What Life is Really Worth

Now I Know What Life is Really Worth

By Kateb Shunnar

There is a sacred moment in every life when you look at the things you once chased as if they were priceless jewels and you see they were only pebbles painted gold. A moment when you touch the walls of your own soul and feel how bare they’ve become from running after what was never yours to keep.

For years, I mistook movement for meaning, achievement for fulfillment, and applause for love. I thought my worth was stitched into my possessions, my status, and the opinions of others. But somewhere between the noise and the silence, I learned what the heart had been whispering all along: life’s worth is not in what we hold, but in what holds us.

True wealth cannot be stolen, corroded, or lost in the shuffle of markets. True wealth sits quietly in the spirit, a richness that deepens in the silence of prayer, the laughter of shared bread, the tear wiped away by another’s hand. Money may fill your pockets, but only love and divine purpose can fill your being.

The Parable of Rahari and the King’s Gold

Long ago, on Madagascar’s eastern coast where the sea and sky kiss in endless ceremony, lived Rahari, a fisherman who caught more ridicule than fish.

His nets were forever empty not a single silver scale to be seen. The villagers joked that the ocean itself had signed a treaty with him: You stay on the shore, we’ll stay in the sea.

Rahari laughed with them. For though his belly was never full, his days overflowed with something richer his wife’s laughter, the shade of a breadfruit tree, and the kind of freedom that comes from having nothing worth stealing.

One day, the royal messenger rode in, draped in silk so heavy it looked like the sun had given him its skin. His horse was white as sea-foam and twice as arrogant.

“The great King Andrianony,” the messenger boomed, “has hidden a chest of gold along the coast. Whoever finds it shall own riches beyond imagination.”

The village erupted. Farmers dropped their tools. Weavers abandoned their looms. Children tore banana leaves into treasure maps. Even the old women, who claimed they were “too wise” for such nonsense, suddenly developed a keen interest in coastal walks.

Rahari’s wife smirked, “Go on, my love. Perhaps your empty net will finally catch something if only a crab with a coin in its claw.”

So Rahari set out in his canoe, letting the paddle glide through waters that smelled of salt and secrets. He steered toward a cove where the rocks looked like sleeping crocodiles a place the elders warned was “watched by the sea.”

As clouds gathered, the water darkened into liquid slate. A heron shrieked in the distance, its cry sharp enough to cut the sky. Then he saw it a glimmer beneath the waves, flashing like an unblinking eye.

He dove in. The cold gripped him like a jealous spirit. There, tangled in seaweed, lay a barnacle-covered chest, so heavy it seemed made of the ocean’s own bones. He dragged it to shore, each step sinking into the wet sand as if the earth itself were reluctant to let it go.

Kneeling beside it, Rahari imagined the lid opening jewels spilling like captured stars, coins enough to buy a fleet, silks to clothe a hundred men. He saw the villagers bowing, the feasts, the way respect would suddenly bloom in their eyes.

But then… another vision came, uninvited: nights spent guarding it, eyes darting at every shadow; friends whose smiles turned sharp; love measured in gold rather than heartbeats.

The chest seemed to breathe. And in that breath, Rahari realized the gold was a prison disguised as freedom.

When the royal guards arrived, armored and sweating, Rahari simply pushed the chest toward them.

“Why?” one demanded. “Do you know what you’ve just given away?”

Rahari grinned. “A heavy box. I prefer my hands light.”

Years later, when famine swept the land and gold could not be boiled into soup, Rahari and his wife did not starve. For he had spent his years fishing for friendships, trading in laughter, and weaving himself into the net of his community. And when you are part of such a net, you are never left behind.

The elders would always end the tale with a knowing smile: “Remember, child, gold can make you richer than your neighbor, but it will never make you richer than your soul.”

The Hidden Meanings

The villagers? They are our desires always ready to abandon what feeds us for what flatters us.

The king’s gold? That is the promise of material gain glittering, yes, but carrying the silent weight of worry.

The cove of sleeping crocodiles? The place where temptation pretends to be harmless.

The barnacles on the chest? The truth that worldly treasures gather decay the longer we hold them.

And Rahari? He is the soul that finally understands that keeping your freedom is worth more than winning the world.

The story stays with me because I see myself in it. I, too, have stood over treasures that shimmered with possibility but whispered with chains. I, too, have been tempted to measure my life by the weight of what I could grasp instead of the depth of what I could give.

The Creator has been patient with me, teaching me that life’s true currency is not minted in metal but in moments: the prayer whispered in the dark, the kindness offered when no one is watching, the stillness that lets you feel Heaven breathing through you.

Poem: The Only Wealth That Lasts

Not the gold, not the crown,

Not the praise from the town

But the smile you mend,

And the truth you defend.

Not the ships on the sea,

Not the land you decree

But the prayers you sow,

And the grace you grow.

When the night takes its claim,

And the world forgets your name,

Only love will remain

The eternal gain.

The Harbor Beyond the Horizon

When I think of Rahari walking away from that chest of gold, I see more than a man avoiding greed.

I see a soul choosing an unchained life.

I see the reflection of the Creator’s invitation to us an invitation that is whispered in every temptation we face:

“Will you trade what is eternal for what will rust?”

We live in a world that builds palaces out of sand and calls them kingdoms. Every day, the tide creeps closer, and still, we defend them with all our might, as if they could stand forever. The Creator, in mercy, shows us the tide’s approach not to frighten us, but to free us.

Rahari’s decision was not simply to give up gold; it was to keep his harbor open. A harbor where love could dock without suspicion, where joy could anchor without fear of theft, where peace could drift in like the tide.

And isn’t that what the Creator wants for each of us?

To live as though the only wealth worth guarding is the one no moth can eat, no thief can steal, and no storm can sink.

One day, every chest we’ve ever guarded will be opened not by our hands, but by His. And on that day, the measure of our life will not be in how much gold we kept, but in how much light we carried.

I pray my hands will be empty of what passes away… and full of what never will.