Money Money Money!!

Money, Money, Money, makes the world go around ?? So ‘they’ say …..

Or puts your head in a spin

Work harder, work overtime, get a higher paying job, work 2 jobs, a part-time job, lack, bills, fear, threats, shame …………….

A whole gaggle of words clutter your mind and whirl in an ever increasing circle of torments until your brain screams “enough”!

Will you ever have enough to meet the demands of modern day living. A moderate living where an average house, an average car, average needs by way of furniture and groceries is all that you’ve ever wanted, but simply cannot sustain in the long term. And some left over to help others – Caustic thought - Humph, can’t even take care of yourself never mind others.

Then your mind goes on another tangent with a cacophony of more words, like fuel price, food price, demonstrations, violence, job losses, strikes, tax, power and the list goes on and on. The word pictures bedazzle and bewilder and you get caught up in thoughts like what is the world coming to? Where is it going to end? Why is this happening?

All the time the problem seems to be out there – not sure where that is though.

Then on your weary way home from an unsatisfying job, which you cannot quit because it keeps bread on the table, or does it? Bread was once affordable by all, but now you wonder how the poorest of the poor manage to eat. A little guilt overcomes you and for a moment you appreciate what you have. Only to have all this dashed when you collect your post and find another threatening letter. Something else you were unable to pay and the creditor resorts to the same age old tactics of battering you with threats of lawyers fees and ITC ratings and black listings etc. etc. despite the fact that you wrote all the creditors and told them your spouse is out of work and until he is employed again you will be struggling to meet your obligations – asking them to suggest alternative measures. Wow, you actually thought you were being proactive and honest in telling them the situation. But on reflection it occurs to you that the person sending you these letters is just another weary employee carrying out the mechanics of their tedious job dealing with irate debtors and hostile callers. A brief empathy for the debt collector flits across your troubled mind.

Then reality …. How are you going to ‘fix’ this? You’re tempted to take a back seat in life and let all the threats take effect and let them do the worst! After all it’s not the first time this has happened, you’ve started from the beginning so many times. However, this time it’s slightly different in a few months time you’ll be joining the pensioner’s bench and panic set’s in. What to do? Who to ask? Another thought of resignation ……………..

Then you open your post and there it is! The opportunity of a life time! But wait you’ve seen many of these over the years, you’ve even sent money away to get the promised instructions to access the promised windfall. But this one looks different, this one is saying something different … “…..Expert seeks volunteers for online money-making challenge:” That’s me you think, I’m always up for a challenge and you find a comfortable chair and relax to read.

Yes, its something you can do .. you love to write … blogging is exactly what you’ve always wanted to do …. It’s getting more exciting … more inspiring … you can see yourself attaining a new level of financial independence, and you’re all ready to take on the challenge. You look at the photograph of the person seeking the volunteers and he looks so ‘nice’, genuine, the picture displays a flat screen PC that you’ve wanted for some time now but have pushed to the back of the ‘one day I want ….’ List. You say a silent “thank you” that God has answered your prayer -asking for someone to send you an opportunity that will give you the breakthrough you’ve dreamed of.

You’ve always been prepared to work and work hard to achieve financial success and you’ve been rewarded over the years with well paid jobs and you remember the time you were employed with a company that paid you profit sharing plus an affluent salary. You drift into ‘play back from way back’ and conjecture as to what happened to it all. Then you remember and make the excuses and the calculations – it went into school fees, broken bones, upgrading the TV, washing machine and other essentials.

You jerk yourself back to the article and carry on reading. The promises seem so great, and the work so easy, everything you’re capable of and the answer to your prayers.

Then the ‘let down’ towards the end where the writer (the nice guy on the cover page) hits you over the head and says in order to attain all these promises you will be required to spend in the region of R800 for the secrets he has put together to ensure your financial breakthrough.

Your shoulders slump, your eyes well up with tears, you see your prayers being collected by angels and dumped over the sea … this is not the breakthrough you asked for. You want to get hysterical and blame God for getting your hopes up again, like the time he sent the R11m windfall which turned out to be a scam. Then you get back to reality again and thank God that you didn’t lose any money to the scam. You also wander is God really responsible for all this? Maybe not hey?

You try and reason how you can get R799.95 to send to the ‘nice guy’ who promised so much. It might as well have been R7m and your heart sinks wondering how you will buy fuel for the month, how you will buy food. The ray of hope that the article gave you is all but a candle light in the wind. A song comes to mind and you see a flash back of the tragic event that ended a fairy princess’ life.

You speculate and cry out to the atmosphere “is there anyone out there that can help”? The silence reverberates around the house and comes back to haunt you and with much sadness you realize that the ‘nice guy’ is only seeking to enrich himself. He couldn’t care about you, his promises mean nothing, as do all the other people who have made empty promises. They give you only enough information to get you interested and then drain your already empty pockets on the next ‘tidbit’. The donkey and carrot scenario.

You get up in disgust and toss the article in the dustbin. “Do I really want to be involved in that kind ‘stuff’? You console yourself that it’s not right to build peoples hopes up like that with clever marketing only to dash them in a small paragraph towards the end of the article.

You’re back to square one. How can one make a profitable part-time income to subsidize your depleted budget? How can your 60+ spouse be gainfully employed on the Internet? The time is running out ….. the clock is ticking loudly … Your spouse is starting to become a recluse. Your spouse is getting more and more disillusioned. His ego is taking a beating. His self-esteem that was resurrected for a brief spell when he was employed for 16 months (after a 9 year unemployment stint) and then was told the company was downsizing and his job would become an outsourced item. Only to learn within one month of him leaving that a colleagues spouse was employed to take his place. Imagine what that does to your self-worth.

You give a silent thank you to your God for your spouse. In all the 20 years you’ve been together and all the hardships you’ve experienced along the way he has never given up and continues to fight for his little bit of heaven on earth. There’s no evidence of bitterness, no thoughts of revenge, no feelings of inadequacies and lack of self-worth. Your mind clamors with more dread and you wonder how much longer can he hold on. How much longer can life deal him these ‘blows’ before he buckles under the load.

Money, money, money …. Is that what it’s all about? Is that what our plan and our purpose is? I somehow don’t think so. I think it’s how you handle all life’s blows and the attitude you have while dealing with the crippling after effects of having to start yet again to build a decent life for yourself and leave a legacy for your children and their children. I sadly reflect on how many lives I could have enriched had I had the means (money) to buy them food, clothes, the much needed medicine and some shelter. I suppose if I had all that money I could buy for my family and for others it would be too easy to ‘hand it out’ but life has taught me that people are so much more valuable than what money can buy. The kind word, the loving touch, the good attitude when you are suffering, the power of prayer in times of trouble. With gratitude and thanksgiving you remember that God is your source and He gives you the power to get wealth. His timing is perfect and He will take care of you. Material ‘things’ will stay when you go but that’s not what will comfort your loves ones it’s who you were and what you stood for. The perfect opportunity will come, never stop searching!!

That was 2008 in a nutshell …… but hey it’s 2009 now. New Year, New ideals, New goals, New, New, New Back at work for the first day we’re all geared up for change and new starts, new challenges, new opportunities, new friendships, new everything. We’re rested and able to tackle this year head on. We’re determined to get our thinking right because where we are and what we are is a sum total of our thoughts. So what a perfect start for 2009 to change our thoughts ………….

2009 Will be divine ………….. chat again – let’s have your comments.