This month's report on wealth management is a study in anxieties, as advisors relate how even their multimillionaire clients are struggling to unload overpriced homes and pay astronomical college tuition bills. Add this to continued fears about double-dips, and you have to wonder: What is wealth, anyway?

If you have to ask, obviously, you don't have enough money to know. Certainly, a mere million doesn't cut it. So I question why so many advisors who accept portfolios worth $1 million or even less call themselves wealth managers, when their clients could be more accurately described as, well, aspirational. Is it really that important to be rich?

As a society, we've expanded the definition of wealth enough that we can all sense a possibility that, one day, we'll touch it. We are fascinated, for instance, by the high jinks of those tawdry, high-living "Real Housewives" and their partners on cable TV. Their homes and possessions are so grandiose, they could be on steroids. Is that wealth? Or is real wealth so much money that no descendant will have to work? Is that too simple?

One of the definitions for wealth in my dictionary is "a plentiful supply of a desirable thing." By that definition, wealth could be an abundance of anything. So choose your desire: health, clean air, clear water. Delicious food served up with good red wine. Peace on earth. Everyone can and should aspire to wealth that goes beyond money, all the way to fulfillment.

As a working mother, I have no trouble coming up with my own definition of ultimate and satisfying wealth: free time, which I could spend with family, friends, my favorite pursuits or in solitary meditation. Oh, wait a minute-isn't that a description of retirement? Perhaps by helping clients plan and accumulate assets to fund a secure retirement, every financial planner is a wealth manager after all.

-Marion Asnes, editor in chief