ARE YOU A SLAVE TO YOUR MONEY?

Well, it's certainly been a while! Looking at this blog site of mine and seeing my last entry as September 2013 (10 months ago!!! Yikes!) makes me wonder where this last year has gone. It's scary how fast time flies. A lot of my friends are complaining about the same thing. Does this mean that life is too hectic for most of us these days? I think so.

So how can we fix it? How do we fix the fact that most of us have day jobs, and not just 9 to 5, but 9 to 5 and beyond. More of us are trying to cram in extra hours at work to help pay for the little luxuries we're used to and can no longer go without. With prices rising on everything these days, we really are becoming slaves to our money. We buy things on credit and then get upset when we can't leave our jobs because we have debts hanging over our heads. In doing so, we spend more and more time at work and less time with our family and friends. We're living zombies! Is it really worth it? There have been times when I've wanted to sell everything we own and go on to live a much simpler lifestyle. I'm still very tempted to do just that.

Why do I feel this way you ask? Well, after spending four weeks in hospital in November, with doctors and surgeons telling me I was lucky to be alive, it put everything into perspective. When you're on your deathbed your last thoughts aren't of the 'things' you've accumulated in life, nor are they of how much money you've made. Your thoughts, in-between excruciating bouts of pain, are of your loved ones, the ones you're about to leave behind. They're also of the tasks you didn't get time to complete. For me it was my family and close friends, first. Coming in at second place, was the thought of all the books I had not yet published and others not quite finished.

When I was released from hospital, I spent the next few months re-evaluating my life. I chose to take a year off work, not only to heal properly, but to work out what it was that I wanted to do for the next forty years or so. I haven't quite worked it out yet, but I'm getting there. The point I'm making is, we all need to stop doing what we're doing and think about what we want. Otherwise we'll look back in 5, 10 or even 20 years time and find that we're still unhappy, still slaves to our money and we're still time poor! Weigh it all up. Pros and cons. Are THINGS really so important to you that you allow the banks to lead you to temptation? Will you allow them to bind you to a lifetime of work by using the metaphorical ball and chain? Hmm...That brand new top of the range car, or that monstrous size house that you want but don't really need, doesn't sound so appealing anymore, does it?

So without wasting any more of your time, I'm just going to say, I, for one, plan to use my time more wisely from now on. I also plan to spend less money on 'things' that aren't so important and I plan to work less so that I can spend the extra time doing what I want to do, like spend it with whomever I want to spend it with.

Until next time....work less, play more.

M.C.