Love What You Have by James Allan

We live in a disposable society.

We buy things, use them and then throw them away.

Our landfills continue to grow, despite no one wanting garbage in their own back yard.

Meanwhile, debt is also growing.  People continue to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need.

We need to come back to reality.  We need to focus on growth in our bank accounts, not on growth in the landfills and growth in our debt.

So what’s the solution?

How can people grow their savings, while shrinking their garbage and depleting their debt?

Love is the answer.

We need to learn to appreciate what we already have.  We need to love what we have.

If you love what you have, you don’t feel the need for more.  If you love what you have, you can easily say no when you’re bombarded with 3000 marketing messages to buy each day (as estimated by Doug Hall at doughall.com).  If you love what you have, you’re not going to throw something out once it gets a little used.

People who love what they have are happy.  They see the beauty in what they’ve got.  When they buy new stuff, they are very selective--because it has to be something they can love.  People who love what they have perform proper maintenance, and ensure they get the most out of their purchases.

If you’re looking for ways to reduce the money you spend this year, spend some time admiring what you already have. Love your possessions.  Maintain them so they last longer.

Disposable items are always more costly in the long run.  Loving what you have costs nothing, but can save you lots of money.  It can also save you time.  You won’t need to run out and get something new just because you have money in your pocket.  Why would you want something new?  Save time and money by loving what you already own!

Is it any wonder that the average "millionaire next door" has a car that’s eight years old?  People that are rich love what they have.  They know the value of quality, and they know the value of getting the most out of their purchases.

Do you spend time dreaming of a new car, or loving the car you’ve got?  Do you spend time dreaming of new furniture, a new house or new clothes?  Or do you spend some quality time loving the furniture, house and clothes you’ve already been blessed with?

What’s going to save you money and make you happier?  Loving what you have, or dreaming of what you don’t have?

Save your money, your time and your environment this year:  love what you have.

___________

James Allan is an inspiring writer who wants you to achieve success in the twenty-first century.  His first book, Street Hockey Millionaire has received international acclaim, and his Score Your Financial Goals home study course is helping people enjoy their dreams of having more money, more time and more fun in their life.

What's Your Plan?

I just read an interesting line in a book that made me stop and think for quite a while.  A man writes about a question that he asks in seminars that he delivers:  “How many of you want to leave the world a better place for you having lived here?”  After almost everyone raises their hands, he asks them another question.

“What’s your plan?”

Wow–there’s the question of a lifetime.  If I want to leave the world a better place, in no matter what level of influence I may have, then don’t I really need a plan?  I think I do.  Do I have a plan?  I think I don’t.

So my goal right now is simply to get others to think of where they are on this issue, just as I’m thinking about where I am.  Do I have a plan?  What kind of plan might I make?  Which of my gifts and abilities need to be reflected in that plan?  I know in my heart that as I think of this, I’m going to discover some ideas and possibilities that I never have thought of before.  And when I do, I’ll make them a part of my plan!

An excerpt from Ari Kiev

The Direction of Your Life

You control the direction of your life.  Only your self-concept limits you from achieving your fullest capacity.  Since changes in behavior generally precede changes in attitude, action directed toward your vision will increase your sense of purpose and belief in the possibility of success.

How can you develop a self-concept linked to your untapped potential?  First, you can decide on the kind of life you would like to lead in ten or fifteen years.  This will give you a standard for making decisions about current activities and will reduce the inclination to compare yourself unfavorably to others.  Learn to ask, "How would I handle this situation were I the person I hope to become?"  And then take action in line with your vision.

If an activity has no relationship to your vision, you may realize that you don't want to choose it.  Would the person that you want to be take on those extra tasks, drive a particular automobile, engage in particular business practices?  Defining your vision will minimize your indecision in making choices about matters unrelated to your goals.

Many people promise themselves that some day they are going to "let go" and do what they want to do.  Unfortunately, the day never comes.  Only when circumstances push them to a point where they have "nothing to lose" do they do what they have always wanted to do.

from his book A Strategy for Daily Living

Life's Journey

Over the years I have learned that life is a voyage of discovery and not a safe harbor.  It is on the voyage that we learn how to steer our own lives and with them the life of the nation we love.  We learn to coexist with our fears, to surmount the obstacles before us.  We find ways to defy danger, even as we reach deep within ourselves for solutions to the challenges of the age.

Katherine D. Ortega

* * *

To take a life, your life, and steer it in the direction you would like, toward the career you want and the fulfillment of your dreams, is the journey--the only real journey.  No matter how rich or successful you think you are, unless you harness your dreams and continue to grow and develop, a boring, sedentary life will set in.  Similarly, those who think they are at the bottom of the barrel, who feel apathetic and numb or think their lives have no chance--they, too, can turn it around and change.  Whether you feel you're unsuccessful, at the bottom of the barrel, or somewhere in between, it's time to shake yourself into action and onto the road of your dreams.

Milton Katselas

http://livinglifefully.com/journey.html

Creating Love (an excerpt)

I learned two important things. . . that confronted my family of origin teachings.  I learned that love cannot happen unless I am willing to commit myself to making it happen.  And I learned that love is a process that requires hard work and courage.
This may not be news to you, but it was revolutionary to me.  I was brought up to believe that love is rooted in blood relationships.  You naturally loved anyone in your family.  Love was not a choice.  The love I learned about was bound by duty and obligation.  You could never not love your parents or relatives, and loving them meant that you couldn't ever disagree with them or want something they disapproved of.

To question any of these teachings was to risk being labeled a "black sheep" or just plain crazy.  To actually go against them was to feel cellular guilt, the price of breaking a sacred promise you never knew you made.

At the same time, love was supposed to be easy.  When you grew up and the time was right, the "right person" would come along.  You would recognize this person immediately.  You would fall in love and naturally know what to do to develop that love.

I'm thankful to Scott Peck for challenging these notions of love, but I do not blame my family for passing them on.

My family taught me our culture's rules and beliefs about love.  Over the past few years, it has become obvious to me that everyone I knew growing up was raised either by parents who followed these cultural rules or by parents who were reacting against them. . . . I suggest that these cultural rules created a deficient form of love, and that even with the best intentions our parents often confused love with what we would now call abuse.

John Bradshaw, from his book Creating Love

My wife and I are facing a certain time of forced austerity that will keep us from spending the money that we earn in our normal ways.  Now, we aren't by any means extravagant spenders--we rarely eat out, we don't go out to movies, we don't have expensive home theater systems or any of that.  But because we want to buy a home, we're going to face a certain amount of time during which we spend even less than normal.  And in order to be able to afford the mortgage, we're going to have to give up some of the things that we take for granted right now.

I don't think it's important to sit down and make a list of things that we'll do without.  Such a list, I believe, leads to inflexibility and probably resentment about our austerity.  And heaven knows what kind of effect it would have on me if I were stupid enough to put something like chocolate on such a list--and believe me, in a moment of unjustified optimism, I could see myself putting chocolate on the list of things I would do without.

I think the important thing for me to do is to prepare myself mentally for making small decisions every single day, and making larger decisions as time goes on.  When I go to the store and I see something really cool that I don't really need, I'll have to decide that I can do without it, even though now I tend to get such things, especially when they're on sale or on clearance.  When we have to decide whether or not we want to eat out, we'll have to ask ourselves whether we want to spend 50 or 60 dollars at a restaurant or to put that money into our account to take care of necessary payments.

No matter what, these will be simply decisions that we'll have to make.  They won't be that difficult, for we know what we really want and we know what our priorities are.  Life is like that--when we decide what we truly want, then making the decisions necessary to make that a reality is suddenly a simpler task, and making sacrifices definitely is not something that causes pain or resentment--rather, it's something that helps us to achieve the goals that we have in mind.





The Rules for Being Human (unattributed)

When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines make life work better.                                  

1. You will receive a body.  You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.
   
2. You will learn lessons.  You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth."  Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.
   
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of experimentation.  "Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."
   
4. A lesson is repeated until learned.  It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it -- then you can go on to the next lesson.
   
5. If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder.  External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state.  When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes.  Pain is how the universe gets your attention.
   
6. You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change.  Wisdom is practice.  A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.
   
7. "There" is no better than "here."  When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that again looks better than "here."
   
8. Others are only mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.
   
9. Your life is up to you.  Life provides the canvas; you do the painting.  Take charge of your life --or someone else will.
   
10. You always get what you want.  Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract -- therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have.  There are no victims, only students.
    
11. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences.  Moralizing doesn't help.  Judgments only hold the patterns in place.  Just do your best.
    
12. Your answers lie inside you.  Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written.  You know more than you have heard or read or been told.  All you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.
    
13. You will forget all this.
    
14. You can remember any time you wish.