I am reading Creating True Prosperity by  Shakti Gawain.  This is an interesting little book.  I don't know if you've given much thought to what exactly prosperity means to you, other than lots of money.  I really haven't.  Shakti raises a good point when she describes money as the medium of exchange we use to represent our personal energy.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  For instance, you spend your time and effort at a specific job and receive a salary as a result of those efforts.  You then go shopping and spend your money on a product or service that represents the energy generated by another person.  In essence, you have used money as the vehicle that enables you to buy the result of another's efforts.  So prosperity tends to be person-specific in that what one person might consider "down and out," another would treat the negative situation as a new opportunity to learn life's lessons.