With what do we buy our money? Many years ago, I was giving a talk on wisdom in the world. At the end of the talk, I was approached by an old man. He came up to me and said, "I want to ask you a question." I said, "What's that?" He said, "With what do you buy your money?" I thought about it for a minute, and said, "With your life, of course." He said, "You're right, and I wish I had known that when I was much younger. For all my life, I worked for money. I put all my time into working for money that I thought I would enjoy later on." He explained that he just never thought about anything else except working to save money, to put money away, to plan for the future. And the future had arrived, and here he was, an old man. And he expressed that he had a sense of bitterness about that, that he hadn't achieved an earlier understanding about the importance of living life, and that he had indeed bought his money with his life. (+)
Image by Terry Pettengill.
2 comments:
I trust myself enough to share these things that are on my mind (sometimes). He,He, ha! otherwise I might forget what I thought or that I think at all !
"I went to a therapist once, because things I think,become true. I can't explain to you the feeling."
So says a waitress at the Greek diner where she utter these words as I was being served by her.
Now, to turn this around from the passive role to the active one: rather than information coming to you, consciously envision what you want. Or as a surfer once said to me, "Look where you want to be." The idea of a conscious visioning process sounds nice, but it has two liabilities.
One, we don't necessarily know the implications of what we're trying to manifest, and therefore it's better to make sure that it's directly within one's deepest values.
Second, it takes you out of the passive/victim role and puts you into the role of co-creator of your life. This is not as appealing as it sounds. The reason most peoples' lives are in the condition they are in is a direct result of resistance to take up any real measure of responsibility for what they create. This is in part a function of lack of awareness; if this is intentional or convenient, it's called ignorance. As it is essential that you take responsibility for awareness, and for making your decisions based on what you know. You have room for error -- but not to pretend that your choices don't matter.
So those thoughts seem funny but true and I again can laugh at myself for forgetting these thoughts. The Tibetan Buddhist says it slightly different, " The limit of your life is the limit of your mind" let say that's clear!
This read like a parable--something that a wise parent would teach his child. It's unbelievable this actually happened! Thank you for this post. It is important to be reminded of what is important often, because I often forget and get entangled in all of the things others want me to be.
Post a Comment