Quite the machine, n'est-ce pas? Don't buy into the machine; the machine is about appearance when it all comes down to it. Instead of buying into the machine, buy into dreams; they may require the same education, driving a purchased vehicle, and wearing the clothes, but the difference in the doing of it sets up a life of long-term stability or willfully accepts a definitive choice of life-time stress. Spending attitudes either create life or limit it. Period.
Like everyone else, I have an insatiable "wanter." I want. Oh, how I often want. Like crazy. My clothes are about as far as I can fulfill my wanter in a material sense because they're on the low-end of expenditures. I purchase high-end labels on clearance or unlabeled beautiful pieces directly from China. I want my clothes to be the essence of me and have honed the ability to get what I want at a fraction of the cost with visions of Audrey Hepburn and Princess Kate backing my purchases. And if I had a million dollars - Oh, what our home would look like!! If I didn't have a million dollars and decided that I'd much rather finance everything to get the instant thrill and want to show off my home - Oh, how gorgeous it would be! But I played that instant gratification game in the naive ignorance of youth, walked through the entrance gates of the great machine called "normal," and subsequently paid for it dearly. "They're small payments" ... "but we've scrimped so long, we deserve this" ... "we have well-paying jobs so we can afford those payments" ... "I should be able to have this" ... "I deserve..." Those sweet little lies of allowance are actually currency for pain, stress, arguments, and misery.
As years of circumstance and trial have taught me about "normal" and the dangerous edges of want and need, and as much as my "wanter" has and does still scream impatience, my sensibilities and desires remain firmly grounded in peace and the hopeful excitement that rests upon the will-haves. After all, the relativity of want changes; any time any one of us have had to wait for something and the wait has felt interminable, when it has finally arrived and a year has gone past, we long forget the angst of the waiting. Truly. Think about it. Relativity. Time. Gratification. The when is never different for the want, but it spells the difference for viability and joy.
What I have and cherish most are my husband and children. I have it all having them. The four walls of our home are built and sustained with the echoes of their laughter, family, discussion, love, joy, and the Spirit of God holding them together. Rather than monthly payments, I have at least forty years to collect and build our home in every dreamy way possible. Forty years! That gives me so much time to fulfill that "wanter." That means that waiting chooses peace over wanting. That means when every improvement happens, it's a celebration and one to be enjoyed, not one to have to pay for and worry over when something else of dire need hits unexpectedly. I love our dreamy space; I love even more the dreamy imagination of its potential and what it will become on an unhurried timeline.
What I have come to know and have won through the difficulty of dissecting wants, ego, self-esteem and need, are these things:
First rule: Know who you are, what you want, and be focused and inviolable to whomever or whatever wants you to fall into "normal." In fact, beware of normal on any level. Be you; be unique. The most important thing you must do is discover the personal gifts God bestowed within you and go after them without apology. People will have opinions - Oh, how many relatives will have opinions and judgments! But you are you and were bestowed with the sacredness of you. Who you are and what you were born to become, rests with God. Live that and pursue it with every essence of your spirit and soul. Living who God meant us to become and what he meant us to have, opens up a well of space that insistently wants to encourage others to do the same. People who don't know who they are live lives of searching, unease, are quick to anger, easily discontented, and are often very much needful of directing other's lives with marked negativity.
Rule Two: Be with a partner who values you and will take your hands and encourage your dreams and ambitions. That person is one who has already recognized the sanctity of his own value and seeks a life of shared spirituality over looks, instant-gratification, or vying for "what everyone else has." Wanting to have for comparison's sake is a slippery slope toward debt and possible marital strife as well as breeds an unbalanced, inharmonious home filled with discord. Think about it. I feel so blessed to have married a man who upholds truth and is solely interested in our union, our family, our desires, our circumstances, our Kingdom of Dreams - outside of anything, and especially outside of "normal." His dreams stand alone and are influenced by the Scots-Irish heritage of Clan, first and only. Our clan's crest is "Nil Durum Volente," meaning "Nothing is difficult for the willing." It's our Kingdom and we have years to build it, wood flooring by wood flooring, brush stroke by brush stroke, transforming cupboards, hanging pictures, creating a music room, a library - Oh, we have dreams! And mark my words: They will happen, but on our own time-table. We understand the whys behind our wants and are willing to wait because we value our family over stress.
Sure, I desperately can't wait to make all of the interior decorating ideas I have inside my head become a reality. And sometimes my "wanter" level spikes and I have such longing that my eyes sometimes pop; but then I stop still when the significance of our blessings as we have them now flood through my heart, and I dance with the refreshing reminder that we are debt-free, living love with our children and experiencing joy in the magnification of our talents. My "wanter" then gets put back squarely where it belongs and I am humbly reminded and so thankful for the four walls of our home and our beautiful family first.
Everyone has a life-time to create a dream place one small piece at a time, one paint can at a time. To do it quickly if one doesn't have the means, spells disaster. I crave peace over fear; I want freedom over nagging debt. It's another reason why I have such happiness every day. I am unaccustomed to "having." Every time I pick up something, I'm delighted beyond words. (Hopefully, this will explain why I'm such a crazy person who sighs over sunsets and flowers; but it is the small things that absolutely bring me Christmas-like excitement every day.) Too much "having" done too quickly, and without appreciation, robs life of joy, spontaneity, and can quickly lead one into dissatisfaction, depression, emptiness, jealousy, and a gnawing place of empty. The joy of things that are new can give-way to a mindset of entitlement if accumulating becomes the goal.
Entitlement does not understand appreciation and can never be happy. "More" shouldn't be mistaken for levels of personal importance or be seen as a cure-all for happiness. Too often, more rots the soul. Two people can have identical wealth, but I guarantee that the one who did it piece by piece, with joy and appreciation, gratitude and patience, choosing to create their home as an expression of themselves over the need for popularity, live more fulfilled lives and worry not what others think. Oh, and are more than likely debt-free (and not necessarily because they had more money to begin with).
Defy normal.
Rule Three: Listen up, college kids! If scholarships aren't available, work part-time and go to school part-time for the whole of your entire education. Think about this: Even if it takes you 10-12 years to get through college because you are paying for it as you go, you will graduate debt-free with the proverbial world at your feet. Taking the long-road can be frightening, but with critical choices in networking, building internships and work history along the way, you will be fully qualified and well ahead of your peers - even those who graduated earlier. Why? You will not be bound to the need of a certain income level because of the debts at your heels. Your adult life will be everything you want it to be. So, dream on, Dreamer.
The modern machine wants you to believe that the *only way* is four years and $120k student loan. The modern machine wants you to calculate your degree against projected income upon graduation. The modern machine wants you to live in ideals and haves. The modern machine thrives on pride, social distinction, interest rates and debts. The modern machine champions "normal" because there is money in the financing of everything. I say to plan your education and the payment and execution thereof, methodically, tactically, and with determined focus. I say live your life on actuals so that when you do graduate, you are limitless and unconfined.
Don't buy into normal. Don't be led astray by the kids who get through college and begin life with a mountain of debt, the financed new car, and the job that may be high-paying but will eat up the bulk of their lives. Love your rusted car if that's all you have in the mean-time. Your dreams are yours; the sweat and pursuit of knowledge is yours; don't let the fruition of that also be attached to a steel weight that takes a considerable amount of your income and personal goals thereafter. Be free to choose. Freedom comes from patience. There are far too many college graduates in debt up to their eyeballs who can't get a job in their field due to market saturation and companies wanting "work experience" over and above that.
I'm sitting here, right this minute, in a home that still smells of the fresh bacon and eggs from this morning's family breakfast. I am cuddled up in a huge comforter on our California King bed, typing away to my heart's content. My husband is creating music and it is influencing the cadence of my sentences. I'm thinking as my eyes scan the haphazard stashes of our talents - from paint brushes to books, guitars to sheet music, how much my life is in all of this. Our home needs paint and so much more and it needs furniture, but we live in a Kingdom of our own as it is. We have no debt and we have a world of possibility that will open up, patient day, upon patient day. Every possible addition that will go into the material wellness of our home will be done so and added with meaning and care - from every photo that goes up to the drapes that are ready to grace the dining room. Another reason to love today and be excited for tomorrow.
Build your Kingdom and don't let anyone talk you out of it. Resist "normal" and live life in unrestricted space with sky reflections in your gaze and the sidewalk to take you there. Trust me. Smiles.
- Living Joy - This Carman Girl
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