Need some income? Not to worry...

Sure, these may not be the most financially secure days of my life. Sure, it may seem like the bills coming in far outweigh the checks I receive for short stories or articles sent out to various magazines. But you know, making the rent isn’t everything in life. Sure, getting enough rent to afford your own place to live is important, but there’s no way it counts for everything. What really matters is whether or not you are spending your days doing what you want to do.

A valuable commodity that many people overlook is time. People don’t live forever, and one never knows when their allotted day for departure has arrived. Because of this reason it’s important to spend your days the way you want to spend them…writing that novel you’ve always wanted to finish or visiting your friends at the pool. Life is not about making money, it’s about living the life you want to spend. If you have a bazillion dollars in your back pocket at any given time but have nothing to do, you’re as poor as the guy who asks for granola bars outside of Petco with a kitten and a cardboard sign.

Besides, stressing about not having enough money does you little good. The one thing for sure about opening your wallet to find cobwebs is that complaining about it is hardly likely to fill it back up. Unless you work for somebody who pays you to whine about how poor you are, which is unlikely. What you need to do is find a positive outlook on the way things are going. Focus on the things you already have and the things you would like to have, rather than the things you don’t have and fear you will never have. Hating the fact that you don’t have as big a TV as your neighbor Rodolpho isn’t going to get you a new TV. You should be glad you get to watch the snowstorm on your 12 inch instead of complaining about it.

Eventually, if you continue to plod along, you’ll find yourself inevitably in a better status. If you never think of yourself as poor and if you never convince yourself that you have hit rock bottom and there’s no way you’ll ever recover, then you’ll find a way out of your economic slump. In fact, I’m working my way out of mine right now; and not by complaining, begging, or moping around. It’s by keeping my chin up and appreciating what I do have that keeps me going.