Grab Shell Dude

A part of me has always wanted to be rich. Not to live rich, though. I don’t want a big house and I don’t want nice clothes and I don’t want fancy food. I just want money in the bank.

Why would I want a lot of money if I didn’t want to spend it? Well, a lot of it for security, so I never have to worry about money. Another reason is so I can help people. And another reason is that so people don’t have to help me.

And, of course, I would like to own my own (small) house, retire someday, go on a mission, and travel a little bit.

But right now, my little family has very little to no income. We’re living off money in the bank for the next few months until Dillon graduates and we get a full-time job.

Having no income is not a good way to get wealth.

But I was thinking/worrying about it the other day. And I thought: I have loved having Dillon around the past few days, ever since his seasonal retail job ended. We have spent some really good time together–watching all the Harry Potter movies, playing with our daughter, going on walks, visiting family, etc. And even though we may not have a ton of material wealth, I felt super rich in the more important things. I was rich in quality time with my family. Rich in love. Rich in happiness.

And suddenly, I didn’t want money any more. I wanted time. I wanted my family.

***

I just finished listening to As a Man Thinketh. It was a very good book (and very short). It talks about how you make yourself through your thoughts. You succeed through virtuous thought. You fail through doubt and fear.

My mom once said that money seems to follow me and Dillon around–because we’ve always had quite a bit of money in the bank, and random sources of income here and there that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere. But maybe it has more to do with how we think about money–we like to have it more than we like to spend it.

So even if wealth isn’t really what I want in life, I can get what I really want by having the correct mindset and correct thoughts.

Dillon has been applying to jobs (three so far–but since he can’t even start working until May, I think that’s quite a bit) and looking for jobs. And I look at so many other people in this economy and think that we probably won’t get a job right off, that we’ll have to spend some time out of work, that life will be difficult for a while.

And maybe it will–I don’t know. But on the other hand, we do have a lot of control over our situation by our mindset. Our goal is to a job in natural resource law enforcement or similar by time Dillon graduates. And we are actively pursuing that through job applications and the like. Dillon is confident that he is qualified and can get a job.

So why not be optimistic? Why not expect to get a job? While we can’t control everything, we can do our best to seize the opportunities in front of us. Pessimism, doubt, discouragement, fear of not getting a job–those sorts of thoughts won’t get us anywhere.