MONEY, POVERTY, AND HAPPINESS...

Nowadays our society thinks that "poor"is a generic mp3 player instead of an ipod, the same shirt bought at a discount chain instead of a brand boutique, a $600 laptop instead of a $2000 one, living in a basement suite instead of a big house, etc...

I notice too that either there are a lot of rich people or a lot of people that seem rich to me because of their massive credit cards and loans, which just buy them more stuff and more debt.  To me, being loaded with a lot of money means being able to take multiple crusies and european vacations every year, not blinking at spending $200 for an evening out with dinner every weekend, buying gifts for their kids that are $500 each or spending over $1000 at Christmas because you just have to buy for everyone...

Maybe you are laughing at me, but from being a penny pincher and budgeter for so long, it has truly changed my way of thinking. Of all the people I have known or met like my definition, I have rarely seen any of them happy.  They just seem distant and miserable, fake and cranky because they complain about being so so poor.  Never enjoying life or what they buy; jit ust seems like such a waste...

(Please know that I am not taking about nice people that are happy with life and generous with their money and help others, because I know some of those, or that I am criticizing money in general.  The point is that money does not buy happiness.)

I mean there are people that don't have a house, don't have a job, don't have any family left or friends, don't know what will happen to them.  Just look at the programs on tv for sponsoring needy kids in other countries; they are pleading to us with their sad eyes, big belly from malnutrition, flies and garbage in their house or backyard which often times is just a homemade hut of straw, sticks, mud.  They have to help their parents, if they have any left, because so many have died from diseases that are easy to fix in our world.  The kids that are 10 years old that should be playing and carefree have to act in their household like a 25 year old.  Where will their next meal come from, how will they afford to bury their family, how will they go to a dentist or doctor or get medication, how will they even get shoes or clothing, who will dry their tears when their mom or dad is gone and how will they even be able to go to school and learn the alphabet that could change their lives?

However, people who have gone on mission trips to poor villages say that they have changed their lives and their view of material things and they will never be the same to see these people amid all of this who have such a happy, simple and generous spirit that you cannot find elsewhere.  How is this possible?  Could it be that money does not buy happiness after all?  And you don't have to go far anywhere in your city to know that there are people that cannot afford food, basic necessities, doctors or dentists, and for whom a happy holiday like Christmas is just not happy at all.  There is judgement, shame, low self-worth and desparation and anxiety to even make ends meet.

In the end, it is not he who dies with the most toys that wins.  You can't take it with you when you go, so what do you have left with your life to present to your maker?  Do you even want to take that chance even if you don't believe?  What if in the end you saw a slideshow of your life and all the people and things you neglected?

There are so many people that give and give and would give their last penny or the shirt off their backs to help others who are in really bad spots and so often they are people who you would never suspect.  People on one income or a fixed income, people that barely have enough for themselves, people that are worried about their own future.  You would never think twice even to look at them because maybe they are not the ones that even stand out in a crowd.  You may be priviledged to hear their stories of how God has always provided for them and that they are blessed when they give, or how they were in similiar situations and someone came through for them at the last moment and that is how they learnt that it is more blessed to give than to receive.  They seem to have the biggest smiles.  Those are the rich in spirit to me.

"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and loose your soul" and "Why spend your life on things that don't satisfy" and "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do to me, says Jesus."  So many other good quotes that just make sense to me.  But that is just my opinion.