Financial Freedom

People act like financial freedom only happens for the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or a Rockefeller.

Let's get a few things straight.

The world, life, the universe and everything else is about me ..... just like yours is about you.  We can't understand the world, taste it, see it or anything else ... without ourselves.  The world ends every day for someone, but it begins for someone else.

At first blush, that seems a very lonely isolated place to be, but it really is the key to something wonderful.  YOU define your world.  You decide what is important to you.  You decide what you want to include in your life as well as what you want to exclude.

Which means ....

You define what financial freedom is.  If you decide it is only something the 1% can have, you have painted yourself into a corner where you will need to make a six figure income or marry one of Buffet's kids to feel free.  For me, financial freedom came down to $150 I could give away without missing it.

Near the end of my marriage, while fears and figures performed a conga line in my brain keeping me up nights, I went to the vet to pick up some flea medicine for my cats.  At the same time, a woman, who I was pretty sure was a single mom, and her son were there.  Fear and sadness chilled their side of the room.  I sat down quietly, waiting my turn, and pieced together what had happened from bits and pieces mumbled.  The family owned a dog who had been hit by a car.  I witnessed the moment the vet told them his diagnosis, "He will need an operation that costs about $150 and he'll be ok."

I can't remember what the operation was for or what type of dog they owned, but I will NEVER forget the look on the woman's face as she heard the verdict and heard her son say, "Well we're going to do it.  Right mom?  We're going to have the operation."  I will NEVER forget how it felt inside my chest as I recognized that the answer was going to be, "No, we can't afford it."

I wanted to walk up and say, "Here, let me get that" more than nearly anything I have wanted in my life.  It was important enough to me that the first Christmas after my divorce, even though I wasn't exactly bathing in money, I gave $100 to that same veterinary hospital's charity fund and I continued to give to them for a few more years after that.  Honestly, I think the only reason I stopped was because it became plain they didn't really have a charity fund, just one bleeding heart woman who kept giving them money to help out other people's animals.  I still give.  I just don't try to create a charity where there isn't one anymore.

So to recap  ... lol ...

1. You define your life.
2. Never ever imagine yourself OUT of what you dream about having or doing.
3. Mansions and sports cars would be nice and fun, but money can also buy you the very good feeling you get from simply having done something nice for somebody else.

It just depends on you.   Have you thought about what would make you feel financially free?