The Havamal: A Heathen Path of Living (Part 22)

40.

Once he has won wealth enough,

A man should not crave for more:

What he saves for friends, foes may take;

Hopes are often liars.

This stanza has important concepts for us in modern America. The first important concept is the notion of ‘enough’. We live in a society where we are not allowed to think ‘do I have enough’? Living in modern America, we are constantly being bombarded with the fear that we do not have enough because a person who feels secure in the knowledge he has enough or that he can be satisfied with what he has will not feel the urgency to buy something new. As Tyler Durden from the movie “Fight Club” observes, “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” If we ever stopped and really checked in with our lives to ask if we have enough, then the answer would most likely be, “I have too much!” The irony of it all is that in the United States, the vast majority of people have food, shelter, and clean water, things that people in other countries cannot say. But, many people are constantly stressed due to finances when in reality, the only thing they risk losing are some luxuries that we have been convinced are now necessities.

I think it is interesting that the word ‘crave’ is used in the second line, which reminds me of ‘craven’, which is another word for ‘coward’. One who craves for more is also a coward. To live knowing that you have all of your needs met and you don’t need more is to live fearlessly without worry that you will somehow be found lacking in a material luxury or not be as good as your neighbor just because your car is a few years too old or your clothes aren’t the latest fashion or your tv isn’t quite wide enough.

The second part of the stanza deals with an uncomfortable fact of life: we don’t know what the future will hold. This part reminds us that the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. We may have saved up all of our money for some big vacation later in the year only to have to spend it all on repairing the roof of our house after a branch fell out of a tree. Not only are hopes liars, but the notion of a future at all is also a lie. To the ancient Norse, life was hard and no one knew if they were going live to see the end of the day or if they were going to die at the hand of some raider or in some accident. So, they lived each day as if it were their last. But, are we any different than they were? Each day there is no guarantee that we won’t die at a shopping mall because someone with an assault rifle decided to shoot into a crowd or that we might even die in a car crash on the way there. Hopes are liars. Today is a truth.