If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself

Rainer Maria Rilke, the mystic of words and the seer of hidden depths, once spoke with piercing truth: “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.” In this wisdom he reminds us that the world itself is never empty—life itself, in every breath and moment, is overflowing with richness. The poverty we feel is not in the fabric of existence but in the blindness of our own eyes, in the dullness of our own hearts. To live fully, we must become poets—not in verse alone, but in vision, in perception, in the ability to call forth beauty from the ordinary.

The ancients also sang of this truth. The Stoics taught that wealth and poverty are not conditions of coin but conditions of spirit. Seneca declared that the man who knows how to use what he has is rich, even if he owns little, while the one who craves endlessly is poor, even if he holds kingdoms. Rilke, too, tells us that daily life is already abundant, already touched by the hand of the Creator, who has made no thing in vain. It is only we, in our restless ingratitude, who fail to see the radiance hidden in the commonplace.

History gives us vivid examples of this vision. Consider Vincent van Gogh, who lived in material poverty, often hungry, often scorned, yet who saw in the most ordinary fields of wheat and in the humblest starry skies an infinite richness. To others, it was only dirt and night; to him, it was divine fire. He was poet enough to call forth the riches of life, painting them so that even centuries later we may see what he saw. His art proves Rilke’s point: poverty is not in the world, but in our inability to perceive.

There is also a heroic challenge in these words. It is easier to blame life, to say, my days are dull, my path is empty, the world offers me nothing. It is harder—and braver—to say, it is I who have failed to see, I who have failed to create meaning from what I have been given. Rilke’s words strip away excuses and place the burden upon the soul itself. If life seems poor, then you must grow greater, you must learn the art of seeing, the art of calling forth, the art of living poetically.

This vision is not reserved for artists alone. Every human being is called to this task. The mother who finds joy in her child’s laughter is a poet. The worker who finds dignity in his craft is a poet. The traveler who sees in each stranger a face of wonder is a poet. To be a poet, as Rilke tells us, is not merely to write but to live with eyes open to the riches of existence, to the hidden treasure woven into every hour of every day.

So what lesson shall we take, children of tomorrow? It is this: cease blaming life for its supposed poverty. Instead, cultivate your vision, your imagination, your gratitude. Train your soul to see abundance in smallness, eternity in the fleeting, glory in the mundane. For the Creator has poured richness into all things—into the falling leaf, the passing cloud, the silence between heartbeats. If you do not see it, it is not because it is absent, but because you have not yet become poet enough to behold it.

Practical wisdom flows. Begin each day with awareness: look upon simple things—the bread you eat, the light at dawn, the sound of a bird—and ask what poem lies hidden there. Practice gratitude, for gratitude is the eye of the poet. Learn to slow down, to see with wonder, to live with attention. And when you feel poor in spirit, remember Rilke’s counsel: the riches are there, waiting in your very life; you need only awaken to them.

Thus his words endure: “For the Creator, there is no poverty.” Poverty exists only when the human spirit fails to see, fails to sing, fails to create. But when you become poet enough, when you awaken the eyes of wonder within yourself, you will find that life, even in its smallest measure, is vast beyond measure, and you will walk not in poverty, but in abundance.