Handling Sudden Financial Change

How many times have you sat in front of the television eagerly awaiting the lottery numbers to be called. Excitement filling you and some anxiety. Maybe a feeling of a little luck, makes your emotions taller than the tallest building in the world. You feel it, you can almost taste it. Your numbers you picked are going to be it.

Quietly, barely breathing you listen to each number called. If it is with you like it is with most people who play, one or none of your numbers are called.

Disappointment sets in. Hope disappears. The visions of that new sports car drives quickly a way.

Maybe after you spend numerous dollars each week and set yourself in front of the TV, you may get lucky. If you are truly full of luck you could be the real winner. And if you are that one in a million what will you do with your winnings? Will it be spent on charities, family, cars, houses, bills? It doesn’t matter to me. What is important to me is not how much you won, but how will it change you.

Will it make your ego soar? Will you give thanks to the one who made it possible for you to win it? I don’t know the answer to this. Lottery can be a great entertainment, I admit. I used to work in a gas station and I would see people spend almost their entire pay checks on beer and lottery. A few days later they would come in for gas complaining about how high-priced life is to live. How they only have a few bucks left until the next pay-day. That there freezer is empty. It is theirs and your choice to live any way you wish, but remember, for every decision you make there is always a good or bad pay off along with it.

Now there is the other type of winner. It doesn’t necessarily even have to do with God. It has to do with your attitude in life and about life. How you feel about yourself. Do you wake up each morning being thankful you have one more day to make the best of it? If the sun is shining, you smile; and if it is cloudy or raining, you don’t gripe. Instead you instantly can think of something that needs to be done indoors for the day. And as you look at the brown grass, you realize that the rain is desperately needed.

Do you go to the fridge and get out food to fix a meal? Do you give thanks to anyone for being able to do this? Do you ever stop and ponder that maybe that old man/woman on the corner isn’t eating this morning because they don’t have enough money to buy food? Or maybe they have the money but no one has made the effort to take their grocery list to the store and along with their money get what they need? Maybe you feel generous enough that you can toss in a couple extra cans of soup for them.

Have you ever thought how darn lucky you are that you can still make the choice whether to do this or that; to be laid back or dig into some project that has been calling your name?

Some people wake up in the mornings and don’t know what day it is. Is it night or even day? Age and sickness ravish this world. You and me are lucky enough to still be able to walk, think and talk.

Now to me, as long as I have my bills paid and food on the table, I consider myself blessed and rich. Of course a few extra jingles in my pocket would be nice. A drivable car is very nice. To have one car in our driveway is awesome. But many times I see two, three or more sitting in one driveway.

We all have multiple TV’s, more than a land line phone, almost everyone has a cell phone on top. Riding lawn mowers, snow blowers, leaf blowers have replaced manual work. Our lives are so easy compared to fifty years ago,and for some reason we still keep wanting more.

This is human nature. I don’t blame anyone for feeling this way at all. We can’t help ourselves. But we need to realize how good we have it today. We are walking, talking, breathing, making choices, dressing ourselves, loving, hating, eating, reading, hearing, smelling, touching. We are rich in these areas and yet we don’t realize it each day when we get up.

So there are two riches in life. Maybe you are the one in the million that has both riches. Maybe you feel you have nothing to feel rich about. But I bet if you reread this again, you will discover you may be the richest one of all.

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Daily Prompt; No Fair

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/daily-prompt-fair/, DP, Daily Prompt

Tell us about…

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Daily Prompt; No Fair

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Who I am

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/daily-prompt-fair/, DP, Daily Prompt

Tell us about something you think is terribly unfair — and explain how you would rectify it.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us FAIR.

When I was a young kid, many moons ago, I thought life was not fair. When I had to share my toys with my brother. This wasn’t fair at all. Not getting to stay up as late as my parents did and being told to go to bed, not fair at all.

As I became a teen I thought I should not have a curfew. Why did I have to come in by midnight on Friday and Saturday nights? I was almost a grown up. After all, I was 16 now.

The rules at my home when I first got privy to driving was, no teens in car until I had much more experience driving. I thought that was the most unfair. How was I supposed to show off my wheels and the fact I was of driving age?

Now that I am considered middle-aged I see a lot that is not fair. Why is it there are homeless people?

Why is it that women who need personal hygiene items, you ladies know what I mean, and yet they are so expensive?

Why is it that we say we have no money and yet money is tossed on lottery, alcohol and drugs?

Why are schools so expensive that parents have to fret and worry on how they are going to pay for those school books? $Math Books$

Why is it that we spend so many big dollars on classes that aren’t needed in college? Or why is it that you graduate college and can’t find a job?

Why is it that nursing homes, hospitals and health care cost so much when we all know that elderly generally do not have the big dollars to pay for it?

Why is it that one normal funeral cost at the least six thousand dollars? Couldn’t that money be better spent when we are still alive?

I know there are questions with varied answers to these and I didn’t post this to get discussion groups started.

It is just that our world is difficult to make ends meet. I see it in my little corner of the world. I am sure you know someone who is struggling in an area of their life also.

Life doesn’t seem fair, but believe me when it is all said and done and we leave this earth, God will show us all the answers.

I can’t fix it. Who am I? Only one person. Today’s problems are bigger than us. I am more than willing to voice my opinion. I am able to join a cause, but alone I can not fix these huge issues.

All’s Fair… (conversationswithyolandi.wordpress.com)
Daily Prompt: No Fair (dailypost.wordpress.com)
Daily Prompts: No fair (angirach.wordpress.com)
Daily Prompt: No Fair – AS SEEN ON TV (teepee12.com)
Another Culture’s Viewpoint (poetryshowcase.wordpress.com)
Scream: So Not Fair (alienorajt.wordpress.com)
No Fair! (quicherbitchen.wordpress.com)
Fairness (jborengasser.wordpress.com)

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#FWF Free Write Friday; Pick a Title

http://kellieelmore.com/

Here is your FWF prompt…

Selecta title from the list below as your…

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#FWF Free Write Friday; Pick a Title

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Who I am

http://kellieelmore.com/

Here is your FWF prompt…

Select a title from the list below as your inspiration:

“Dandelion Season”
“Phone Call at Midnight”
“The Green Years”
“The Human Zoo”
“The Fires of Spring”
“The Ivy Covered Gate”

Phone Call at Midnight

Brian was a cocky teen. He was the son of a President of the local bank. His mother didn’t work outside the home. She was involved with many charities and either at meetings or hosting parties at their Bellville home.

Every one who was anyone envied this family. Money, fortune, cars, luxuries and beyond was theirs. People did their best to be good friends with Robert and Sandra. Sandra wore a pasted smile on her face when ever she was out in public but underneath she was a stalker.

A stalker of actions. She watched everyone. She knew that it wasn’t her that people craved, it was her money. She assumed that there was an outside reason that so many wanted to friend her.

Her heart had gold bars around it and she never had found the key to open it up. She was like a delicate egg. You handled with care and didn’t upset with wrong words. I guess she didn’t really know any better although I believe myself, that as an adult you can surely make changes in your life if you don’t like who or what you represent. Her own parents had married into money. She learned what she saw.

Robert also had come from old money. He had been taught to stomp on who ever got in his way. Success was the bold, highlighted word in his own made-up dictionary. He was stern-faced, clean-shaven. A suit and tie guy. His heart was made of steel and there was no key in the beginning. Breaking him would be a difficult task to say the least.

They had one child. They didn’t really want this child but you were no one if you didn’t produce an heir. As soon as Brian was born he was gifted into the arms of a nanny. As he began school he would come home excited to show his parents what he had made that day to be brushed off and end up showing his prize to the nanny silhouette.

He made plenty of friends. He was invited to every party as he got older. He could have any girl with his good looks, but he hated himself. How can one be so popular and yet have a sour taste when he hears his name.

In his senior year, he was so empty his heart ached. He had the shining key but he didn’t know how to use it. He had never been taught how to show his affections. No one had ever sat down with him and said those three magic words I love you.

His parents filled their pockets, their guest lists increased but at midnight on Brian’s graduation day his parents received a phone call. It was one of his friends he hung out with. He was calling to say that Brian was at his house. He was stuttering as he told Robert and Sandra, ” the police just left here. They are on their way to your house. They are going to give you some bad news. I just wanted to give you heads up. Brian hung himself in my clothes closet tonight.

Upon hearing the voice over the phone, Robert hung it on its cradle and looked over at his wife who was soundly sleeping. He tapped her until he got her a wake. She sat up grumbling, “what is it? I have a headache. Can’t you wait until tomorrow?”

As Robert broke the news a sound came from the floor. They both looked down. When they reached down to pick up what they had heard they stared at each other as they looked into the others hands.

Three keys, one gold, one steel and one shiny. All three were scratched around the edges. All three had edges that were worn down. The two sat and waited for the police, staring at the keys.