Wealth is a Mindset

A friend recently said to me that his money challenges were overwhelming! We need to be very careful of the language we use as it shapes our destiny. The word overwhelming means "so strong as to be irresistible." Poverty or lack is NEVER irresistible, it is a choice we make not something that comes upon us or happens to us. Money is a servant, NEVER speak of it as a master! Here is my reply:

The lack of money is not overwhelming ... challenging, annoying, an inconvienence, but not overwhelming!! Money is an energy that is constantly flowing ... sometimes we find ourselves swimming against the flow ... and sometimes that flow is a tidal wave, instead of fighting it we need to grab a surf board and ride it. Be grateful for the experience and the learnings that allow you to be able to relate to others in similar situations in the future, now turn and ride the wave and enjoy the moment.

If money can fix it, it is not a problem!! Lots of people have problems that money can't fix.

How To Catch Wild Pigs

My friend Bruce Mackie from Canberra sent me this - I think it is a great example of the mediocrity that is now accepted in the western culture.

There was a Chemistry professor in a large college that had some foreign exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter.

The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke."You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn.

When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc, while we continually lose our freedoms- just a little at a time.

One should always remember "There is no such thing as a free lunch!"

Also remember you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. If you see that all of this wonderful government "help" is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably ignore this, but God help you when the gate slams shut!

Thanks Bruce ... great food for thought.