The Bank That Never Fails Wealth Without Wallets

The Bank That Never Fails

Wealth Without Wallets

By Kateb Shunnar

I’ve been thinking about wealth a lot lately, not the kind that jingles in your pocket or lights up your banking app with green numbers, but the kind you can’t exactly flash on Instagram. Because let’s be honest half of what we call “wealth” is just an overpriced costume show. Folks polish their cars like they’re

buffing the gates of heaven, they iron their credit scores like it’s their wedding suit, and yet inside they’re bankrupt spiritually starved, emotionally overdrawn, morally foreclosed. We live in the so-called richest country in the world, where you can order a pizza at three in the morning, but you can’t find a genuine smile after nine o’clock. We have refrigerators stuffed with food and hearts emptier than a gas tank at rush hour. We’re eating well, but we’re eating poor junk for the belly and junk for the spirit. It’s like showing up to a buffet with ten thousand dishes but realizing every single plate is Styrofoam with a plastic grape glued to it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the dollar. The dollar has its place. The dollar pays the rent, keeps the lights on, gets you Wi-Fi so you can scroll yourself into an existential crisis at two in the morning. But I’ll tell you what that dollar can’t do it can’t pay off your loneliness. It can’t buy you out of a panic attack. It can’t bribe death to give you a rain check. And if you’ve ever tried, like some of us have, to stuff a gaping hole in your chest with shiny toys and Amazon packages, you already know it doesn’t work. It’s like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with Tic Tacs.

What I’ve learned, mostly the hard way because apparently, I’m one of those people who refuses to read the manual first, is that there’s another kind of bank account. Not the one you stand in line for, tapping your foot behind someone who insists on paying their mortgage in nickels, but the kind that exists in the invisible space where your prayers, your patience, and your kindness get stored. Call it the spiritual account. And before you roll your eyes and mutter, “Here we go, another sermon with a savings metaphor,” hold up. Because this account doesn’t crash when the market does, and the interest rates? Out of this world literally. See, I’m not rich, not by any stretch of Wall Street’s imagination. I don’t have stacks of cash hidden under a mattress or gold bars buried in the backyard. But spiritually? I’m loaded. A straight-up millionaire. And the funny thing is, all I deposited were two mustard seeds of faith. That’s it. No starter loan, no crypto scheme, no multi-level-marketing nonsense. Just two tiny deposits, and suddenly I’ve got dividends of peace that outlast the stock market ticker.

Now, let me give you a story my grandmother used to tell, which I later spruced up with my own twists. She swore it came straight from the river itself, though knowing my grandmother, it might’ve been the collard greens talking. Either way, it stuck with me.

Once, there was a fisherman who stumbled across a clay jar washed ashore. Nothing glamorous, no genie popping out asking for three wishes, just a plain old jar. Thinking it was empty; he plopped himself on it like a stool while he cast his nets. But here’s the strange part: every night, when his nets came up dry, the jar somehow had one fish inside. Not a dozen, not enough to retire early, just one. Enough to survive. The man thought he’d discovered his very own secret ally. But humans being humans, the guy got greedy. “If I fill this jar with gold,” he thought, “I’ll never need to fish again.” So, he traded

the fish, bought shiny trinkets, coins, and crammed that jar full. The next morning? Empty. Clean. Sparkling like it had been rinsed by the sea itself. No fish. No coins. Nada. Furious, the man hurled it back into the waves, cursing it as useless. That night, the whole village heard laughter rolling across the waves. Some swore it was the river mocking him. Others said it was the Creator whispering, “You can’t hoard what was meant to flow.”

Now, you’d think that fisherman would’ve learned a valuable lesson. But no, because fishermen are like the rest of us: hard-headed. We repeat the same mistake three dozen times before it dawns on us that maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t the jar. And isn’t that the human way? We’ve got jars in our life’s relationships, jobs, talents, opportunities that provide just enough to keep us alive, just enough to keep us humble, and instead of appreciating them, we try to cram them full of gold. And when it all disappears, we curse the jar, not realizing the jar was never broken we were.

My grandmother used to shake her head at humanity’s nonsense. She’d quote, half under her breath, “Surely man is inordinate because he believes he is self-sufficient.” At the time, I thought she was just being overly dramatic, like one of those prophets who sees a grasshopper and declares it a sign of the apocalypse. But the older I get, the more I see the truth in her words. We’ve turned individualism into a religion. We worship at the altar of self-sufficiency, bragging about how we don’t need anybody. Meanwhile, we’re quietly starving emotionally, morally, spiritually. We’re the loneliest we’ve ever been, surrounded by more people than we’ve ever known. That’s not freedom, that’s famine dressed in Gucci. And here’s where I’ll slip in a little sarcasm because, let’s face it, sometimes truth needs humor to keep it from sounding like a lecture. Isn’t it hilarious that we think we’re “independent” because we pay our own phone bill? Meanwhile, we’re dependent on Google Maps to find our own street, dependent on coffee just to have a personality before noon, dependent on Wi-Fi like its oxygen. Self-sufficient? Please. If the internet went down for three days straight, half of us wouldn’t even know how to cook rice without YouTube. But that’s exactly why this whole spiritual bank account thing matters. Because while the physical world keeps us running in circles chasing paychecks and possessions, the spiritual account reminds us that true wealth is measured differently. It’s measured in compassion that didn’t run out when your patience did. It’s measured in forgiveness you didn’t think you had, mercy you offered even when you wanted revenge, peace that showed up like a surprise guest when you should’ve been falling apart. I’ll confess something I used to think spirituality was just an add-on, like that optional insurance you click “no thanks” on when booking a flight. I figured, as long as I had enough hustle, enough grit, I could build my own life brick by brick. But here’s the kicker: every time I built something impressive; life came along like a mischievous toddler and knocked it over. Jobs, relationships, plans it all toppled. And you know what kept me going? Not my savings account. Not my credit score. But the invisible deposits I didn’t even realize I’d been making. The prayers muttered half-heartedly, the random acts of kindness I didn’t think anyone noticed, the scraps of faith I clung to when nothing else made sense. Turns out, that was my real safety net. And that’s what makes me say, without hesitation, that I’m a spiritual millionaire. I may not have enough to buy everyone dinner tonight, but spiritually, I’ve got reserves that outlast recession. And honestly, that feels funnier than it should. Imagine bragging at a party: “Yeah, I can’t cover my rent this month, but spiritually? I’m ballin’.” People would laugh, but deep down they’d know what I mean. Because wealth isn’t about what you flash it’s about what holds you when everything else falls.

So, here’s the deal: you want to be rich? Start depositing into the account nobody can touch. Skip the gold-stuffing, let go of the jar-hoarding, and remember the fisherman’s lesson. Because when the storm hits and it will the only thing that’s going to keep you afloat isn’t how fat your wallet is, but how full your spirit is. And when you withdraw from that account, the return isn’t just survival it’s joy, its compassion, it’s that strange peace that doesn’t make sense to anybody else. That’s wealth. That’s the bank that never fails.

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