Monday, January 18, 2010
Cycle #11 - $10.24
I don’t like to talk with Percy about money. He makes me uncomfortable. But I need his wisdom. I need his challenges.
“Why does money frighten you?” he once asked me.
“Frighten me? What are you talking about? The lack of money frightens me!” I said.
“Not true,” answered Percy. “You somehow associate pain with an accumulation of finances. You have to find out why. If you were not afraid, you would have solved your shortfall long ago. You have to discover where the fear comes from, or you will never master it. Fear lets money master you. Why?” He waited.
“You’re off the mark with this one, Percy,” I protested. “I’m not afraid of money.”
“Of what money represents," he countered, "Of the responsibility it generates. Having resources demands attention and care and a watchful eye. Are you afraid of standing guard? Or of losing what you have once you have it? Or of having to say ‘no’ to people who will ask for favors. Are you afraid of a complicated life? Or do you think money is dirty and will somehow corrupt you?”
“Money is the root of all evil… as the Bible says,” I snapped back.
“No, you have that wrong. 'The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil' is how it actually reads. And the fear of money is the love of money in another form.”
“You’ve lost me…” I said.
“You fear money because you imagine it’s big, too big for you. You make it big, a master, a lord, a god. We all fear what we don’t understand and imagine it as more than it is. But money is easy to understand – it multiplies or dies. It’s alive. As long as you don’t know this, you can’t understand money, and you’ll imagine wrong pictures of reality.”
“I’m not doing any navel gazing about my bank account,” I said emphatically.
“Fine. Just begin with the assets now in your hands. You have mastered that much and you’ve proven you are not afraid of that level, whatever it is. But more? I bet you’d freeze up as some arbitrary amount. We all do. There’s some quantity at which fear begins to paralyze. All you have to do to grow in this area is to keep pushing that boundary backward. Don’t go all at once. Just push a bit back at a time. Multiple that principle and you’ll soon be in unchartered waters, and out of your pit.
Today I’m hardly in uncharted waters; not yet. All I needed was an additional $5.12 to complete cycle #11 and arrive at grand total of $10.24 – real money, wow! But while $10.24 isn’t a lot, it’s 11 of 25 doublings, and that’s progress in a proportional sense. Here’s how it happened this round: I’ve been praying for ideas and for God to open my eyes to ways of multiplication.
Today the answer came without so much as a thought. I happen to reach into the back of my closet and pulled out a coat I haven’t worn in weeks, maybe months. After I’d buttoned it up reached in the pocket and there… Yes, it’s true… There I found a small stash of cash – two $5 bills and three $1 bills, money I had totally forgotten about. Yreka! If only it could always be this easy!
The “Double Up” adventure is my effort to double $.01 as many times as I can in the year 2010. I hope to run as many as 25 “cycles” which would produce more than $100,000 – about what I need this year over and above my salary to meet additional living expenses. Follow my progress…
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