Good morning & happy Monday!
“The secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage.”
– Thucydides, Ancient Greek historian & general, 460-400BC
Last Monday was my grandfather’s 90th birthday. He is in a memory care unit and unfortunately has lost most critical memory function. His memories are occasionally somewhat accurate, oftentimes completely distorted, and quite frequently he tells stories that never happened. He has no idea where he is, but is quite content with his circumstances. It was a wonderful day of celebration with him and other family members.
We are blessed that he is in a really great facility, but of course because of his condition he is locked into a wing of the facility for his safety along with the other memory care unit members. The staff will take him out for walks or other fieldtrips, but he most certainly requires supervision anytime he is outside the memory care unit wing.
In order for me to visit him I had to have a code to get into a locked door and in order to leave I had to enter a code to unlock the same door.
As I was leaving the birthday celebration last Monday, I entered the exit code, opened the door, waved one last time to the staff who takes such good care of my grandfather, and walked down the hall with the door shutting behind me. At that moment I was really struck by my FREEDOM.
My grandfather, because of his condition, does not have freedom. He can’t drive, it would be exceptionally dangerous for him to do so. He can’t leave the facility unsupervised, it would be unsafe for that to happen.
I however was free to leave the facility, I was free to drive off the premises, and I was free to go do anything I wanted. I used my freedom to go back to the office and continue the workday (exciting, I know 😉), but I could have chosen to go fishing, golfing or drive to another state. I could use my freedom to do good things or to do bad things. But all those choices would be mine because I have the freedom to make them.
My friends, we all have freedom … and it is so precious … my question to all of us is: what do we do with our freedom?
We can use our freedom for whatever we want.
Over the last year or so I have really gotten into listening to Podcasts. I was recently listening to a John Maxwell leadership podcast and one of the statements they made really made me pause and think:
“You can spend your life any way you want, but you only get to spend it once.”
Wow! How are we going to spend our life? How do we choose to use the freedom we have?
When it comes to finances we have complete freedom too. We can choose aggressive investment strategies or conservative investment strategies. We can choose to spend our money on clothes, vacations, cars, the list goes on and on. We also have the choice to stick with our investment plan even when it’s tough or we can turn on the financial media and listen to them shriek about “this time is different.” The choice is ours.
But there are consequences for whatever choices we make.
If I spend beyond my means, there are consequences for that … I’m free to do so, but I must pay the price. If I work non-stop and make a ton of money but don’t investment in my family relationships, then there are also consequences for that too.
Freedom is an amazing thing, but with freedom comes consequences for the choices we make.
When my boys were very young (like 2-4 years old I believe) I would constantly ask “Is that a good choice or a bad choice?” when they were engaging in some type of activity. I would then say “Choices has consequences. Good choices = good consequences. Bad choices = bad consequences.” They are 11 and 9 years old now, but to this day they remember that dialogue (I just checked with my 9 year-old son and he had a big smile on his face as he recalled these early life memories / lessons).
Freedom is an amazing gift. What is the best use of our freedom today?
Thank you for making the choice to partner with us at Intentional Wealth! It is a tremendous honor to be on this journey with you.