Gratitude For Time For Myself, Online Gratitude Journal #17

Your money or your time

Recently I had a serious confrontation with my inner child. She was upset.

My inner child: You lied.

Me: What!?

My inner child: You lied. You said when your business grows, you’ll have more money, and we’d go out playing.

Me: Um, yes. I really mean so. Why is that a lie?

My inner child: Well, your business is growing, and you are busier than ever before. We don’t have time to play. We don’t even have time to sit down and chat. You’ve been ignoring me.

For the sake of clarity – my business is growing, thanks largely to my friends’ help, and I’m sincerely grateful. And I love and am proud of what I do. My inner child’s complaint has nothing to do with the satisfaction level of my work.

Me: Well . . . it’s taking off, but it’s far from success. We just made it past the break-even line and when we pay the quarterly self-employment tax for the first time in January, we won’t have so much left. Actually not really enough to pay all the bills yet. It’s very important to build a solid foundation of business at this time. And . . .

My inner child: SO WHAT? We have some money now, right? So we don’t really need to worry about becoming homeless. Then we can play, can’t we?

Me: Umm . . .

My inner child: I don’t really care how much money we have. What I want is to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

What do you really want in your life?

I could see her point. I thought money would buy me the time to enjoy life, and maybe when I have plenty of passive incomes, it can work that way, but right now, the more I work, the less time I have. I don’t have time these days to do things just for fun. I hardly have time to care for myself.

I have financial responsibility to provide secure residence and enough foods to myself (I mean, to my inner child) but it’s also true that I’ve gotten myself in a growth dilemma.

So I realize it’s not money that I really desire. I want freedom, I want love, and I want to further my spiritual growth. Money as numbers doesn’t thrill me – it’s so abstract. Money as a means to get what I want is good, but then, it’s easier to desire the very things rather than the money.

How about you? Do you really want more money, or is it something else but you are substituting it with money?

My Law of Attraction Dream Money Project

This Dream Money Project has been a fun way to stretch my wealth consciousness. But I feel I’ve done enough of that. Also, beyond one million dollars, I think it’s more about paying back to the society rather than using it for myself.

I guess I have a bit different attitude about money. Many people seem to dream of big houses and shiny new cars when they use the Law of Attraction. I don’t quite get it. I own a beautiful 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage house back in Tennessee (anyone want to rent it?), but when I was living there myself, I was only using half of the house. I felt kind of stupid. And car? I just don’t get what the big deal is about Lamborghini or even BMW. I want a safe reliable car that is reasonably good looking. I currently drive 2006 Civic and quite happy about it. Maybe one day I will get a Prius, but that’s about all I want.

How about things like dresses and jewelry, you may ask. Well, I love looking nice, but my preferred dress code is casual or boho. It can be expensive but not pretentious. I hate pretentious. And I hate boring. To me, certain brand goods just look so boring. I do like jewelry because I love stones and pearls. For me, they are more like arts and crafts to be appreciated than personal show of wealth.

For the Law of Attraction to work, the target of my desire need to be something (or people or events) that get me excited and happy. Money and material stuffs (without personal meanings) don’t do that to me. Things that signify freedom and love do. Like seasonal flowers. Time to enjoy music and arts. Time to read and learn, time to write and share my passion. Time to hit the road to see the ocean when I feel like it. Organic foods, and time to cook. Or the fun to dine out occasionally. I want to try ayurveda spa. And aromatherapy (or just playing with some flower essential oils). And . . .

Okay, I think my inner child is getting happy again.

So my Dream Money Project is put aside for now. From next edition of Gratitude Friday, I plan to start “Intention Game” to practice the Law of Attraction further.

Link Love

Well, even though I’m getting off the Dream Money Project, I know this is a great way to stretch the mind. My friend Mokihana just started it. Have fun with this, Mokihana!

Recently I’ve had the honor to be interviewed by two great bloggers. Davina’s interview focuses on intuition, dreams, and spiritual guidance. It also includes fascinating topics such as déjà vu and out-of-body experience.

Alex at Someday Syndrome interviewed me on a more personal side.

Additionally, I had the opportunity to guest post at Pick The Brain. It’s about how spirituality helps entrepreneurs – very important topic. Please check them out, stumble, digg, whatever love you can share ^_^

Update: Looks like the aforementioned post at Pick The Brain went to be posted at The Huffington Post. Cool.

Today I’m grateful for the coffee and the chocolate biscotti, Amazon.com that make it so easy to get hard-to-find books, Burt’s Bees Almond Milk Hand Cream, and even the rain (it’s been raining daily for two weeks here, but it’s finally clearing up!).

Okay, this is it for this week. I’m going to have a bit of R&R this weekend. Got to keep the inner child happy . . . (Photo by Mr. Greenjeans)

Embrace The Big Questions Worth Spending Your Life For

(Photo by Michael Dawes)

Are you addicted to the quick and easy answers?

We live in the world of instant gratification. Huge questions of love and life are solved usually within 90 minutes in the movie. There are numerous websites that offer answers of all kinds. Or you can just type a question like “What is the meaning of life?” in Google search box. (Seriously – if you haven’t done this yet, try it and see what you get.)

I’m afraid so many people are getting conditioned to this quick and easy answer system that they have largely given up their right and responsibility to seek answers themselves. I was alarmed when I did the key word research for my article The One Word That’s Sucking Up Your Energy Right Now. Here are some of the questions people often ask to Google using this dis-empowering word SHOULD:

• Who should I vote for?
• Where should I live?
• What career should I choose?
• Who should a Gemini date? *
• Should I stay with my boyfriend?
• What should I do with my life?
• What should I make for dinner?
• What should I write on a headstone?

(* Apparently, Geminis ask this “Who should a (zodiac) date?” question most often, followed by Sagittarius. I’m a Gemini myself, but I have no idea why this is so. Do other Geminis really think the internet can answer this question?)

How the quick and easy answers steal your joy and peace.

Let’s say you ask “What career should I choose?” and Google or your career counselor tells you, probably based on some personality or talent tests, that you should become a teacher. So you become one. Do you think you will be happy and confident with your career? Teaching, like any other professions, comes with lots of challenges – your teenage students are distracted and rebellious, administrators are demanding, and there are so many things to do – and the pay isn’t very good. So?

I’m not saying the teaching is not a good profession. The problem in this example is that the foundation of your choice to become a teacher is so weak. On the other hand, I know several people who left high income jobs to go back to school and became teachers. They chose the teaching career because, through their own experiences and search for the meaningful life, they came to realize they wanted to teach. They are happy with their choice because it is a choice they made consciously. And they have peace in them.

My friend Ken beautifully wrote about the joy we find in our life journey in How I Traded My Life For Future Security And How I’m Getting It Back. Again, the search for answer is as valuable as arriving at the answer.

The more challenging the game, the more fun.

There are cases for quick and easy answers. When I buy an electronic gadget, I want to start using it right away. Reading the long manual is no fun, and I really like it when it comes with “Quick Start” instructions. I can learn about additional features later. For now, I want to get things done with this new gadget and then go out for a walk.

But our life is not like stuffs we buy for consumption. We are in life – where do you want to go after you save time and energy by getting the quick and easy answers on critical questions of your life?

Further, just like certain games, life is more fun with challenges. Ask yourself – do you enjoy a game that you know so well and are 100% sure to win, to the point that you know exactly how you win and finish the game? Would you even bother playing it?

Enjoy bearing the big questions.

Recently, I was exchanging emails with Steve at Brip Blap about I Have A Dream . . .. This article did fine as a blog post, but as a meme, it was a total failure. No one sent me articles. Steve asked me if it’s too late to submit his article, so I replied, “You are welcome to participate any time, but let me ask you – do you think the project was too grandiose? Or did I not market it enough?” He says that the project is great but it does take some time to write because it requires good thinking. And in this busy world, few people takes time to think even when they know it is something worth thinking.

Hmm. . . How can I make sense of this? I conclude it was great if the post inspired some people to think about the big dreams of life. It’s okay they didn’t get the answers quickly. Keep asking yourself the big questions.

It’s not just the question of your dream. Find and embrace big questions that are worth spending your life for. Carry the questions, check back often, while you live and enjoy your journey.

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