As I write this post the Chilean miners are being extracted from the depths of the Earth. CNN tells me that 17 have been rescued and 16 remain underground. This wonderful story can teach us three important lessons about money:
1) What you think is really important might not be important at all. So you really think it’s crucial to get a new car? Buy a new toy? Purchase a larger house? What if that money was spent on something else? Something more lasting? A date with your significant other? Time alone with one of your children? A donation to your favorite charity? These are the things that we can’t undo, the things that will last.
2) As important as money is, time is more valuable. First of all, I understand the premise that time IS money. I get it. What I’m talking about is finding balance for your life. Even as I write this post, time is ticking away. Time that I will never get back. I love my work and I enjoy spending time helping my clients. But at some point I need to say, Enough” and return to the more important things in my life: faith, family, friends. True, I need some amount of money to enjoy these things but I’d rather get to the end of my life with all three of these and some money left over than to get to the end with a large mountain of cash and none of them.
3) Work matters. Having said all of that, our jobs matter. They matter to others and they should matter to us. The miners were working when this disaster started, they had to work to help clear rubble and most of them will be working again within a few weeks. Because our work matters, lets do work that we enjoy and can be proud of.
I am thankful that the miners are being rescued and I am confident that they will take lessons from this ordeal that will permanently shape the way they live their lives. And I hope that you and I don’t need to get trapped underground for two months in order to learn those same lessons.
