Opening Day Passion

I liked playing baseball as kid but I have never been a fanatic fan. One of my high school friends was. He was a real good pitcher, knew stats that you didn't think existed and even had a backyard wiffleball field built to the exact mini-proportions as some big league park.

I played at this mini-park a couple of times and thought - THIS IS COOL! Then I thought - THIS MUST HAVE COST A LOT OF MONEY! Starting as a kid and into adulthood I thought money was the end. Others had it; I wanted it and wanted to keep it.

I am blessed to say that my attitudes about money have changed dramatically since I was a young adult. I now know that how you think about, spend, acquire and give away money is a simply an expression of what your values are. Money expresses what you care about. It is a tool, not the end product as I once thought. This is the case whether you have a lot of money or just a little. How you use the money you have is a better indicator of your happiness than how much is in the bank (or 401k or bonds or real estate or mutual funds or etc).

My brother went to Harvard so my ears naturally perk up when something about Harvard is in the media. I think most people naturally do since they think someone smart must have come up with it if they are from Harvard. Maybe so but I think what I heard is pretty smart.

The Harvard psychology professor recently condensed 15 years of thinking about the elusive concept of happiness into his new book, "Stumbling on Happiness." He says that beyond a certain point, money has very little to do with happiness. "Money does make a difference when it moves you from abject poverty into the middle class, but it stops making a large difference at about that point. In terms of happiness, the difference between making $5,000 a year and $50,000 a year is dramatic, but the difference between making $100,000 and $100 million is negligible, almost nonexistent."

So what do we do with this information? We live it of course. Instead of scheming and scraping and sacrificing to make a million dollars, we make sure that our lives are what we want them to be at $50,000. I said before that money is nothing but a tool that expresses our values. This is true but a tool can be better used by a skilled craftsman than a child. The Bible does not say that "Money is the root of all evil" but rather that "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows." Without properly using the tool unhappiness comes.

Do you believe that it is possible to live life abundantly on what you make (or less)? I do. I am a believer. My wife is a believer. In fact a lot of my friends and family are believers too and that is the reason I started this blog. After giving advice to lots of friends, family and acquaintances, (some of it solicited) I was encouraged by my wife and others to start a business giving financial advice. While I am not going to do that right now I thought I would start spreading the "good news" in this way. Maybe I can figure out how to put one of those electronic tip jars on here in case I write anything worth tipping.

Anyway, that is my introduction. I have a series of topics that I plan on writing about but feel free to comment, ask questions and clarify what I write on here.

Thanks for listening.

Lar