| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"V" |
| Date: |
02 Nov 2005 05:29:28 PM |
| Object: |
Poorness ... is a state of mind |
Written for a 12 step group
Poor? Poor is a state of mind and all such problems are created in the
mind. From 'As A Man Thniketh'..."Wretchedness, not lack of material
possessions, is the measure of wrong thought. A man may be cursed and
rich; he may be blessed and poor...the poor man only descends into
wretchedness when he regards his lot as a burden unjustly imposed." How
can a person like Thoreau feel rich with $10 in his pocket, yet many a
modern day millionaire feels poor? In two words - Self Worth. Self
worth cannot be bought and resides within a person whereas money is
external and sits in a bank vault. The acid test for such things is to
take away a person possessions and strip a person naked and see how
much self worth is left? Was all their self worth wrapped up in their
house? Their car? Their trophy wife? Their bank account? If you ever
wonder why rich people sometimes commit suicide after they have lost
their wealth, this is the reason. All their self worth was locked up in
a bank vault - there was nothing left within them to live for.
If you equate living within a budget as being poor, then you are not
looking at the big picture. To be practical, everyone has a budget to
live within, if they want to manage their money successfully and stay
solvent. Even Bill Gates with his billions has a budget. Depending on
which projects he would take on, his billions wouldn't go far enough.
Or lets go to the ultimate source, the US Government. Even though they
can print money at will (more or less) they have a budget to follow. So
why should we be any different and not accept our limits? Defiance and
abhorring limits or boundaries are two outstanding characteristics of
the addict. Accepting my comfortable means and developing a real
gratitude for those means has led to great inner peace, Whereas in my
prior life nothing was ever enough and there was no peace. I look at
the clarity a budget provides as freedom, not limitations. For without
that clarity, I'd be in debt and suffering and far from feeling free.
We can develop much happiness in life once we start practicing
gratitude as Thoreau wrote: "I am grateful for what I am & have. My
thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contended one can be
with nothing definite - only a sense of existence." I discussed this
subject in an earlier post "Grateful Just To Be." Would not every great
man or woman that took a spiritual path be considered a failure if
viewed in monetary terms alone without gratitude for the rest of their
life? Was the Buddha, Jesus, Thoreau or Mother Teresa vastly rich? The
Buddha a homeless beggar having to be fed by others with charity? A
well loved Greco-Roman philosopher Epictitus was said to have 4
possessions when he died - a cloak, a bowl, a candle and sandals.
Socrates even surpassed Epictitus in his simplicity. All Socrates owned
was a cloak and walked around Athens barefoot. I am not writing this to
persuade you to go around barefoot and not own anything. I am just
conveying the knowledge that the great spiritual and philosophical
practitioners of history would not be considered successes when viewed
in monetary terms alone. But, they were great success when it came to
inner peace.
In the real world, we all need some money to live. Some people get the
wrong idea that I am against money when I write you suggesting you put
peace first and money last. No, I value money greatly, get all of it
you can by legal, honorable and legitimate means. But also realize that
money is only one part of the equation for living a good life. What I
do guard against is turning money into a god and destroying one's life
and the lives of others to get money by artificial means. Thoreau tells
us that we need food, shelter, fuel and clothes as necessities. In
modern times, I will add transportation to the list depending on your
local. Everything else is pretty much optional. If we have these needs
met and are still not happy, then their is no end to our supposed needs
for that elusive state of happiness that we seek. We all seem to have
no shortage of supposed needs or wants. The problem arises when we have
to scale back and force ourselves as AA's 12 and 12 tells us to live
"right size" and our self worth is attached to the idea of looking for
inner fulfillment through outer possessions. Money is a useful tool,
but as one writer reminds us - money only goes so far.
Money can buy a house, but not a home.
Money can buy a bed, but not sleep.
Money can buy a clock, but not time.
Money can buy a book, but not knowledge.
Money can buy food, but not an appetite.
Money can buy position, but not respect.
Money can buy blood, but not life.
Money can buy medicine, but not health.
Money can buy sex, but not love.
Money can buy insurance, but not safety.
You see, money is not everything
There is much more to living a serene, happy and balanced life than
mere money. Money is nothing more than stored energy. Money is neither
good or bad - it is people that do good or bad things with money.
People also do good or bad things to 'get' money. This is where the
addicts makes a major mistake with their recovery work - they refuse to
balance their recovery needs with their own personal wants. A want and
a need are quite different. Addicts many a time refuse to live within
their comfortable means and try to attain money artificially by
'selling their soul' to get it. To most people 'means' refers to money,
but when I refer to means, I am speaking about all of them; whether
they be financial means, spiritual means, capability means, energy
means, mental or stress means, caloric means, health means, comfortable
space means, time means and most important my recovery program means.
We each have different means or capabilities in each area, so don't be
concerned with what 'he, she or they' can do, just be mindful of what
YOU can abstinently, soberly, solvently and comfortably do.
One of the biggest breakthroughs in my recovery was to learn to accept
Gods / Higher Powers will and to live within my means. If my
comfortable earning potential is low, I live within it. If it was high,
I'd do the same. I was always wanting to live the bigshots life, but
only had below average capabilities in that department. Once I accepted
my natural and authentic life, I could be at peace with who I was
instead of basing my peace on trying to be someone I'm not able to be.
All it took was my acceptance of my comfortable capabilities and
acceptance to live at peace and with gratitude for my current
surroundings. Sure, I can stress myself out, push things to make more
bucks, but my recovery programs will suffer. I've found that an addict
doesn't dictate to their addiction how much money they wants to make.
The addiction does the dictating to the addict with how much, money he
can comfortably earn and still maintain abstinence and sobriety. A lot
of so called 'unederearners' in Debtors Anonymous have no concept of
this. They say they want to make 'X' amount of money to pacify their
ego, but do not take their comfortable 'un-drugged' earning
capabilities into account. This concept of 'program comfort' not only
goes with jobs, it goes with every other aspect of my life. I discussed
this in an earlier post "Concept of Forcing Things."
The bible tells us in Phillipians 4:11 "For I have learned in whatever
situation I find myself to be content. I am experienced in living low
and I know what it is to have abundance. I have learned how to cope
with every circumstance - how to eat well or go hungry, to be well
provided for or to do without." Good advice whether religious minded or
atheist. Peace and contentment is not limited to any one religion and
is open to all. The problem for some of us with absorbing such wisdom
is that of our own prejudices. I discussed this in my earlier post "Our
guiding Light - Prejudice or Truth"
I was talking with a lawyer the other day. He was a millionaire and had
a nice penthouse office with big leather tufted upholstered chair and a
secretary to fetch his coffee and donuts all day. He was grossly fat
and had hard time breathing as he wheezed and coughed. He also had a
badly swollen leg that might need amputation from diabetes and poor
circulation. As he recalled all his projects to me I could see why he
was in so poor physical shape. He had no shortage of business ventures,
he was in automobile dealerships, real estate develop, metallurgy and
reclamation, venture capital loans as well as his law practice. He was
all about making money, but was bankrupt when it came to healthy living
practices. It did not sink in to him that sitting on your butt all day,
smoking, drinking coffee, getting stressed out and eating junk foods is
not healthy living no matter how much money you make.
No matter how 'rich' a person is they cannot pay their butler to eat
healthy foods for them nor have ones butler or maid do ones exercises
and sweat for them. We are all on equal ground in this area. I
discussed this in detail in my earlier post "The King and Queen of Good
Health" When I write about BALANCED LIVING, this lawyer is a textbook
example of UNBALANCED living. I tried to plant some seeds in him
through living a life of voluntary simplicity, healthy eating and
exercise. You know what he told me? He said he had too many bills to
slow down and had no time for exercise. Oh well, all I can do is plant
seeds in others...I can't force them to sprout. Being a millionaire
wasn't enough for the lawyer, he still had 'poorness'
consciousness.Thoreau once said: "a man is rich in proportion to the
number of things he can afford to leave alone." This millionaire was
much too busy to live right. He reminded me of a quote from Ruskin.
"In a shipwreck, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with
one hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was afterwards found at
the bottom. Now, as he was sinking--had he the gold? Or had the gold
him?"
I took some time off when I left the meeting with the lawyer to go
trail running. I am most grateful and rich for having such wilderness
just 15 minutes away. While running, I recalled how I used to visit
these same woods for nearly a decade, yet never heard a woodpecker
until a few years ago. My mind was too concentrated with worries and my
own obsessions of money and material things. I heard my first
woodpecker in the summer of 2001. The woodpeckers were always in the
woods, but my mind was not. I was present with body only. My mindless
state was not limited to the woods - I was mindless in my daily life as
well. My Buddhist practice reminded me that mindfulness of the present
moment is the foundation for living a life at peace. Peace is not in
the past, nor is it in the future. Peace is always in the present
moment. Once I let go of past and future obsessions and became present,
all of a sudden I was able to see and hear many new things in my life.
And just like the woodpeckers, these gifts were always in my life - I
just could not see or hear them. As I relaxed after my run near a small
waterfall and listened to the birds sing and the woodpeckers
rat-a-tat-tat, I gave thanks for my two good legs, my health and for
the clean air and luscious green nature that surrounded me.
Take Care,
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive
spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write:
vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not
the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
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| User: "Shark school missionaries" |
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| Title: Re: Poorness ... is a state of mind |
03 Nov 2005 05:53:01 PM |
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"V" <vfr44@aol.com> suddenly spluttered:
Poor? Poor is a state of mind and all such problems are created in the
mind.
Tell you what, go live in Darfur.
------------------------------------------------
Conflict over the exact will/purpose/nature of God cannot ever be
resolved, since there are no facts to go on.
D Silverman FLAHN, SMLAHN
AA #2208
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| User: "Ike" |
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| Title: Re: Poorness ... is a state of mind |
03 Nov 2005 01:59:45 AM |
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"V" <vfr44@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1130952567.991829.142000@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Written for a 12 step group
Poor? Poor is a state of mind and all such problems are created in the
mind. From 'As A Man Thniketh'
I alwatys thimk.
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| User: "kathryn" |
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| Title: Re: Poorness ... is a state of mind |
03 Nov 2005 06:16:46 PM |
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I'll be sure to tell my bank manager that next time I go into the red
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| User: "Divin Marquis" |
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| Title: Re: Poorness ... is a state of mind |
03 Nov 2005 03:46:10 PM |
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Le Wed, 02 Nov 2005 09:29:28 -0800, V a écrit :
Sujet: Poorness ... is a state of mind
The word you're looking for is "poverty."
Hope this will help you alleviate the poorness of your vocabulary.
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| User: "Dubh Ghall" |
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| Title: Re: Poorness ... is a state of mind |
04 Nov 2005 07:22:32 PM |
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On 2 Nov 2005 09:29:28 -0800, "V" <vfr44@aol.com> wrote:
Written for a 12 step group
Well guess what?
Clue: This aint a twelve step group, whatever that might be.
Now go and "thnik" about that
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