Meaningful Returns

Maybe a better question is: How does money make you?

Seriously, what does it do to you? And what do the things you spend it on do to you?

I’ll be honest. I wish my wife and I made more money. I wish the prospect of one of us staying home didn’t make me start sweating and worrying and trying to make my spreadsheet say a number that it doesn’t say. I wish we could renovate our kitchen just the way I want to without hassling over how to pay for it. I wish I could buy more shoes.

But you know just as well as I do–and I mean, come on! I’ve written about it!–that none of this would go away, really, if we were to wake up tomorrow and find our salaries had doubled. Sure, I fool myself into thinking it would, but if one of us started staying home, and the kitchen was just how I wanted it, and I had more shoes, then suddenly the thing that had been held up for comparison would now be reality, and guess what? I would just come up with a new comparison.

I don’t know how to stop this. I really do not. But I think part of the solution lies in taking time in our lives to go outside, to a quiet space, and asking ourselves this piercing question:

What is it I have to be thankful for?