Your money or your life?

This morning while noodling around two of my favorite blogs, I had cause to think about how important it is too really pay attention to the things you enjoy in life. Simple things, like the feel of spring time sun on your back as you step outside of your classroom or the rush of catching a wave just right and sliding through the water before you kick it out and start again or the wonderful feel of signing that check that pays off your last credit card debt. And complicated things, like working out a way to teach a seminar on personal finance to kids or figuring out how to control your urge to treat yourself by giving in to your wants instead of working on satisfying your needs.

The simple things are easy to enjoy but the complicated things quite often make us feel stressed and unhappy. Robert Kiyosaki points this out quite well in his RichDad series when he talks about how schools teach us. We learn to fear failure and thus set ourselves up for a life time of it. One thing my own education taught me was that it never hurts to ask for help is a difficult concept to keep in the forefront of your thinking as a problem develops. All they can say is no is usually the concomitant back up. But the truth is that it does hurt and sometimes they can say a lot more than just no. The key for me was in learning the concept behind these homilies. What others think about your ideas and plans doesn't have to matter especially if you are happy in working on the problem until it is resolved. And that brings me back to my original thought, letting life's complications be enjoyable can really be just as simple as waiting for that ninth wave even if it never comes.