We live in ambivalent times. While we actually live in the western world in the richest times with many of us belonging to the top 10 per cent of the world, measured by net worth, many of us worry and feel life is too tough.

Ten per cent of the world’s population equates to 800 million people, and those 800 million people have a net worth of $80,000 or more each. I am not talking about the ten richest people, or 1,000 richest people, not even about the top 1 per cent (the richest 80 million people who each have a net worth of more than $1 million.

Take a moment and look at your net worth. How much do you own after subtracting all open debts and mortgages from your assets (pension fund, shares, a house or condo, car and savings).

To be fair, divide your net worth by all household members. It makes a difference whether one person enjoys $100,000 net worth, or whether four or five share it.

Some readers may be surprised that they belong in the top 10 per cent. Especially in Bermuda where everything is so much more expensive, we might have to adjust our numbers. But objectively, many seem to be doing well.

But when we compare with those who have more we get into trouble. Comparison is the thief of joy. Still we like to keep up with the Joneses. It is really a tool to get into a bad mood.

I am tired of “If only...” statements about Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or other super rich or even just “normal millionaires” we know about. I don’t really care about their yachts, space programmes or mansions. Let them enjoy their luxury.

Sure, it leaves a sour taste when some get richer and richer, even during the pandemic, while others see their dreams fade away. I would maybe admire them more if they started paying their employees better wages, support more charities, or making their products and services more affordable, because they don’t need to make more profits. Sure they could do more, but so could I.

So let’s rather compare us with those other seven billion people in the world who are much worse off than we are. Most of us belong to the top 10 or 20 per cent who in turn own more than 80 per cent of all assets and money in the world (and the top 1 per cent, about 80 million people, own about half of that) and the rest have to share the remaining less than 20 per cent, which is not equally spread either, but most of that remaining worth is still in the highly developed countries of Europe and North America, and shared by just 1 per cent or 2 per cent of those six or seven billion people.

They have hardly any net value, but they are the poor among us. They live from paycheque to paycheque, and have to be careful what to spend the money on. The poor in Africa or Asia often are much worse off, they are starving or are sick and have nothing.

When I compare myself with the lower end of the worth pyramid, I realise how well I am off. What am I complaining about, and what do I worry about? Yes, not everything in my life works out as I would wish, and yes, I have to work for a living, but at least it gives me a living. If I learn to budget better, I won’t starve. Maybe I just have to live within my means and read Dave Ramsey’s advice column in The Royal Gazette with more decisiveness.

Still with all that rich lifestyle and positive net worth, many of us worry. But what is worry? Rick Warren writes in his Bible study Created to Dream: “Worry means you have forgotten God’s goodness. Worry says: ‘God has dropped the ball. My problem is either too small for his attention or too big for him to handle. Either way, if it’s to be, then it’s up to me.’ Worrying is also a waste of time. It’s fretting without fixing. It’s stewing without doing, Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair: you extend a lot of energy, but you don’t get anywhere. You just go back and forth, back and forth . . . should I or shouldn’t I . . . will he, or will he not . . . are they, or are they not . . . back and forth, back and forth, with absolutely no progress.”

So what is the antidote to worry and fear? How can we find our way back to happiness and contentment? The Beatles actually had the answer: all you need is love.

That may sound strange. How can I demand love? However, I think it is about the love we have for others, not so much the love we desire to receive. Love is first and foremost active, not passive. It is our action toward others.

When Jesus was asked in Matthew 22,36-40 (New International Version): “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” He replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We are commanded to love, that means to be our brother’s keeper, to take care of others who may need our help.

Invest your talent, time or treasure to help others. People who have tried that often report that they themselves felt better afterwards. When we start loving, it usually is not a one-way street, or not for long.

When I take the focus away from my own problems and issues and rather look how I can make a difference in the lives of others, even if it is just one or a few people, I feel so much more fulfilled and happy. Making other people happy makes us happy.

When someone really appreciates the Christmas gift I gave, it has an effect on me, too. At another occasion Christ advised his listeners to do good to those who cannot easily return the favour (Luke 14, 12-14).

Yes, having just entered the new year, we are invited to dream, to imagine what God may have in store for us. Loving God with all our heart, soul and mind means to trust his promises, to hold on to it even when we cannot see yet, where it is leading us, and get active to pursue the dream, the goal. Then we can say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 13,13 (NIV): “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s