Those who know me personally could probably tell you that I am not a money oriented person… At all. I don’t wake up with money on my mind or live by a “M.O.E. (Money Over Everything) code,etc etc.
For the past couple of years, I’ve looked at money as no more than a means to an end. It’s the medium that will help me get to where I want to go in life, but otherwise I have no use for it.
That being said, I don’t treat money like it’s no object. I can actually be very frugal when I need to be, and have what I’d like to think is a pretty good handle of giving myself a budget. The one thing I always hold dear to me, the thing that wins over money every single time for me, is the idea of good health.
Unlike money, which can be depleted or replenished at any time by virtually any means, good heath is something that can never be guaranteed by any one deciding factor. You could be rich with poor health, poor with good health, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter, is that when your health leaves you for any reason, suddenly nothing is more important. I can’t think of one person who wouldn’t blow their entire fortune if it meant that they could have good health.
Even though this is the mindset that I operate from, lately I feel like I lost sight of what was really important.
I’m a very goal oriented person. On any given day, a majority of my actions and decisions come from a goal driven place. I even write this here blog with a bigger goal in mind and rarely do anything simply for the sake of doing it. So when I tell you now that I’ve been working six-day, 40 hour weeks at my job for the past two months and that my only days off have been to work at my second job, believe me when I tell you that my sole objective was not to “Get money.”
There was a credit card bill that I had, that I told myself I would pay off by the end of January of this year. So naturally, when the opportunity appeared to work virtually 7 days a week over the holiday season, I jumped at it because I really wanted to get rid of this bill. I cut down on my social life, unnecessary spending, etc all so I could have enough money to pay off my credit card bill at that set time. And what happens?
My trusty car, which has given me almost no problems for the almost 3 years that I’ve owned it, suddenly needs a new gearbox, and to anyone that knows, gearboxes can be expensive. Not only do I need a new gearbox, but I needed a new car battery and my car insurance was due, so that’s another X amount of dollars. So in a nutshell, I got to watch two months of hard work disappear in a week’s time. Got to watch as my January goal got pushed back indefinitely because my funds are now insufficient. Got to watch as my bank account,which was just starting to show numbers that I had not seen for quite some time, went back to showing numbers I was all too familiar with seeing. I found myself more frustrated than genuinely upset with the situation as it unfolded. And what was my reward from all this you might ask?
Two days ago, I almost passed out at work from exhaustion because I didn’t realize how hard I’d been pushing myself within the past week alone. Had to leave work early, go home and get what actually felt like rest for the first time in weeks. Not surprisingly, I’m feeling much much better today after an actual day off and a chance to rest my body, mind, and soul.
Basically, I pushed my body to its limits and,to an extent, have very little to show for it. I’m not bitter or mad about it, I just remember thinking that when my head was pounding, I’m feeling dizzy and fighting off wave after wave of nausea is “What’s wrong with me? I hope I don’t have to go to the hospital“ and not “I hope I don’t have to leave early and miss out on the chance to make more money.”
So going forth into this new year, I definitely plan to pace myself more and keep what I find to be most important as the biggest factor to consider surrounding my decision-making. Yes, I couldn’t pay my bill when I wanted to, but at least I can afford to take care of my car, my car which helps me get to my necessary destinations to make money to pay for that bill. I just hope that for those of you that read this post, and had “Make more money” as your top resolution for 2013, take time out to really think about how important or unimportant it may be in the grand scheme of things, especially if you should ever experience a situation like mine.
