An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.

Money is not nothing, and anyone short of it this month knows exactly how much it is. The comparison is not wealth against poverty but wealth against direction: a person with plenty and no aim keeps buying things to stand in for one. Direction also happens to be the asset a bad year cannot take.

If money is tight, none of this asks you to pretend that is fine. It suggests keeping some quiet claim on what the money is for while you work on getting it. A small aim you believe in makes a hard stretch feel like a passage rather than a permanent address.