Is this just me?
Am I the only one that's like this? I have a plan to save up for something, then I finally have enough money for what I planned to get.. But now I don't know if I really want it anymore..
It's like when you don't have money, you see ALL the things that you "need" but when you have the money, it ends up not being that important and you feel you could do without it, or can even talk yourself out of it all together..
Or am I just getting old?
Why ask Why?
A friend of mine from facebook stated:
If you are invited to church, you should not have to ask 500 different questions. Do us all a favor and stay home. Someone else can take your spot.
My thought pattern is "Why?" Wouldn't you WANT someone that has a bunch of questions about religion or God, or your church to come? Those are the people that are really in search of answers.
Why do questions anger people or put them in a defensive mood immediately? Why do questions make "believers" feel the person asking is a "skeptic"? Do you feel the question is challenging your faith? Someone that requires a little more justification before they're able to committ to something normally?alludes to?uncertainty or?inexperience. That ?isn't reason to deny them knowlege I'd think. I would be over compensating to try to get them the answers they seek in order to aid them, not ostracize them. Whether it's just the answer to their questions about a church, or something they may be confused about religiously.
Remember, we all had to start somewhere on our walk. Some of us haven't even gotten out of the front door yet.
What’s the True Measure of a Person?
A friend of mine wrote:
"The true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do them no good"
I just have a simple question, are you really measured by how you treat someone, that has nothing in return for you? Or how a person can benefit someone that has nothing in return to give?
I guess this alludes to the old addage, "give a man a meal, and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish, and he'll eat a lifetime. " In my personal opinion, it's not necessarily how you treat one another that matters, it's how you benefit someone else that your heart is truly judged. Now with that, of course, honor and respect come as well. I doubt someone would be receptive to what you were trying to say, let alone teach if you did it in an unruly way..
Investment Strategies – Short Term vs. Long Term Gains
"Investing is the active redirection of resources: from being consumed today, to creating benefits in the future" - Wikipedia
Now if we take that statement out of the context of money (which I know most of you thought I was going to tell you how to be a millionaire in the market... I DARE NOT!!!), and put it in terms of ourselves, what does this mean?
Simply put, CHANGE and PATIENCE.
A true "investment" in ourselves normally doesn't manifest in immediate gratification. It's not some "ah-ha" moment that they like to portray in TV.(You know like when House talks to his friend and in the convo, he knows what's wrong w/ the patient? Why doesn't he just have the convo at the beginning of the show? - I digress) A true investment is a series of several small changes that eventually affects your life and turns you in a different direction. I like to call these small changes "short term gains" because while they do attribute to your over all success, they aren't necessarily the ultimate goal.
Long term gains are what we eventually receive when the short term gains add up and manifest into real change; lifestyle changes if you will. You can equate long term gains to the ultimate goal you're trying to achieve in order to change your life to for the better.. Unfortunately, often during the process, we sometimes get sidetracked, or "caught up" in the short term gains that we become complacent or even content. For example, we'll start a workout regimine and lose a little bit of weight, and enjoy the results, but then turn back around to old habits. We forget that long term, we planned to live a healthier lifestyle. This was but a result of that decision. A lot of us, due to social influence, equate healthy with thin, focusing on the external. We think we've already arrived at our destination, because we look a certain way, when we've only just begun our jouney. Same thing can be attributed to money. For instance, if we've paid off all of our credit cards, we haven't really made a life altering change. We've simply "fueled the beast" all over again if we havent changed our mentality about debt in general. If no plan has been devised to ensure that we don't get into the same patterns, routines, and habits, then there will be no long term realization and we will be in a never-ending cycle.
Let's look at a couple of examples of very simple plans..
Example 1: Living Debt Free:
Short term gains could consist of a strategy of paying off your credit cards, creating a budget that would allow for you to save and selling things you don't necessarily need in order to pay off debt. While these things would create change in your life, it's not necessarily life altering. It's not until we change our lives in a 180 degree manner that we're not able to go back to our old habits.
A long term gain would be the practice of paying cash for everything because you no longer had to rely on credit cards. This is a direct result of the short term accomplishments that you achieved previously and dedication to not going back to a debt-filled lifestyle.
Example 2: Being Healthy
Short term gains could consist of small changes in what you decided to/not to eat, an exercise plan, deletion of bad habits(eating while watching TV, bored, or emotional) and weightloss.
Long term gains could consist of the dedication to that healthier lifestyle, and a longer life.
The main message of this entry could have been summed up simply with the definition of "investment." How are you "reallocating and redirecting your resources to profit you in the future"? What are some of your "Investment Strategies"? Have you devised a plan to make your life profitable in the future?