Indulgences

I revealed the amount of money I live on to someone today and suddenly felt ashamed. I have not felt that way since I was a little girl living in a wealthy upper class neighborhood and wearing shoes that had holes hidden in the soles. We were the poor rich, whatever that means. To us it meant my mother told us we were wealthy and that we only lacked money temporarily and that along with wealth came obligations. One of those was to make do with what you have. My parents made do amazingly well and we children? Children only know what they live and learn, so we were fine too.

I have always felt I can do whatever I truly desire to do and while that is not exactly true, it really is true in most cases. There are many ways to do everything and it is only necessary to search for the ones that fit into a way that works for me. It is also necessary to truly want something badly enough to be willing to do whatever it takes. Suffering is not much of a burden if the journey is sweet.

My tax people laugh at my church mouse standards. I am the novelty among their clients, the one who is more than content to live on what most of their clients pay in taxes. I am not proud of this fact. If I could sell my book, or find another way to make money that did not interfere with the really important things in my life, I would gladly live with more.

I do not have a lot of money, but I have everything I need. I am even able to indulge myself by using a small portion of it every month for something very dear to my heart. That is the secret to being satisfied with less - being blessed by using what I have.