Okay, Michael, NOW you are sounding like the philosophy that I carry within me. It has taken a lot of years. (I am 80.) For 25 years I was married to the most pessimistic man I have ever known. Nothing was ever good. Nothing was ever right. Nothing was ever fair. Finally with the help of a good pshchologist I walked away, went back to school working as a dorm mom while going to school and caring for my four children still left at home. It took a lot of years, but gradually I began to see myself as a nice worthwhile person, the world as a wonderful place, and always expected good things to happen~~and most of the time they did.
At first money was scarce~~Oklahoma’s teachers had an even worse pay scale then than they do now.But I read inspiring books, took courses to boost my optomistic thinking and gradually learned to get in the flow of life. I always expected~~and most of the time got~~a parking place close to where I needed to be and I frankly told friends I was riding with, "There will be a parking place by the door ." When they found this to be true they joked they were always going to have me ride in their car. Then once a friend told me "When you start to think about money the way you think of parking places, you’ll never have to worry about money again." This has worked for me. I do not live extravagantly but buy the things I need and my life is comfortable. I live on retirement income, supplementing it by still ‘subbing’ in the schools, and have had a bit of success with writing, having (real life) stories published in three national magazines. I have read it before and I’m convinced that it is true~~Life is a mirror. What we see outside is a reflection of what is within. No one can make another person happy. It all comes from within and is self-made. Wasn’t it Lincoln who said people were about as happy in life as they made up their minds to be?
Thanks for the letter which reached me on a cloudy rainy day in Oklahoma. NOW I’ve got to find those two $50 bills I hid from myself in a book on my computer desk bookshelf. What karma caused me to thoughtlessly place them in a book without conciously registering what book they were in?( Care to envision me finding them?) Sincerely, Virginia
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MN:
What a wonderful story, Virginia! You are a testimony to "the simple, good life." I’m inspired!
Regarding those $50 bills – losing money is like Karma, isn’t it? Just when we think we’ve run out of Good Karma, it reappears!