Month: October 2018

Thought For The Day

Quote #1

“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” (Unknown)

Quote #2

“He who loses money, loses much. He who loses a friend, loses much more. He who loses faith, loses all.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Quote #3

“If you want to know what a man is really like, take notice of how he acts when he loses money.” (Simone Weil)

Quote #4

“Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one.” (Benjamin Franklin)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

1 in 302 Million…

1 in 302 million. That’s the odds that everyone faced in the Mega Millions $1.6 billion jackpot this past week. It was definitely the talk of the town wherever I went, with people dreaming big about what they’d do if they won. I’ll admit I bought a single ticket for a mere $2, just to say I participated once again in the lotto fever that struck, but sadly, I didn’t win. Yet, somehow, at least in my case, I wonder if that was a good thing.

Money truly corrupts the soul, as the more one has, the more it seems to drive a person into selfishness and self-centeredness. There is a general belief that money is power and the more one has of it, the more one can do anything. Some even say that everything has a price and can be bought. I’ve known of a few who went to jail that might agree because they didn’t have enough money to pay for those high-priced lawyers who always seem get their clients out of serious hot water.

Regardless, I believe I’m a far healthier person overall today without all the money I once had. As when I did have a bunch of it, I carried an attitude that definitely wasn’t filled with gratitude, I walked around like I was better than everyone else, and I used it to control and manipulate those I was attracted to.

As a recovering addict now, I see so clearly how having money was just like any other addiction. I chased after it and it controlled me more than I controlled it. When I lost the majority of it, I truly felt like I had lost my identity as well, because I had completely built my life around it, but I honestly didn’t like myself much back then, as all of my happiness was defined by what all that money was able to get me.

There were so many people, places, and things, that it allowed me to access, that I never would have accessed without it, yet I never appreciated any of it. It was all part of a spiritual sickness that kept growing the more I chased after it. One, that made me quite ugly in the way I operated and lived out my entire life, which brings me back to this most recent billion-dollar lottery payout.

For the one who wins a $1.6 billion-dollar lottery, the cash payout after all the taxes are taken out is a lump sum of $904 million. I’m quite sure there are plenty of people who feel that having that amount of money would solve all their problems for the rest of their life. But, I can promise you that it’s the ego saying that, as there are far more complications that come with having a lot of money in your pocket.

New friends come into your life because they want what you can offer with all that money, not because they inherently like you. People come out of the woodworks with frivolous lawsuits, hoping to get a piece of your pie. Long-time friends start to expect you to pay for their meals, bills, and vacations because you have far more than they do. People begin to spread rumors about you, constantly talking behind your back, spreading gossip, due to their jealousy, always trying to tarnish your reputation. You also become more of a magnet for charities, scams, criminals, and much more. Thankfully, I only had to experience the tip of the iceberg with this, but I’ve done enough research to know these are indeed the many headaches that come with having a lot more money.

Nevertheless, I discovered that having ample money during a period of my life was also my Achilles heel for trying to live a spiritual life. During that period, I rarely cared about anything spiritual, especially God, as money made me feel like I was invincible to the many sufferings on this planet. Yet, when I lost the majority of it back in 2010 and began to experience both life without it and life in chronic pain (as that is when all my health issues actually started), I quickly realized just how much money had created an illusion in my life and had been poison to my soul.

So, maybe it really isn’t a good thing for someone like me, a recovering addict who’s trying to serve God on every level these days, to win a $1.6 billion-dollar lottery. Maybe indeed God sees I might never become the spiritual being I pray I’m meant to become if I was filthy rich. While I may never know the truth to this, I do have to laugh at God’s sense of humor, as I wrote on the back of my ticket this past week after purchasing it, a single statement three times. I said “This ticket is a winning ticket” and you know what, it actually was.

I got the Powerball number right and won my $2 back. And somehow, I think that maybe God was trying to send me a message in that… 🙂

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

 

Silly Joke Friday

Silly Joke #1

An elderly Muslim lady was well-known for her faith and for her confidence in talking about it. She would stand in front of her house and say “Allah be praised” to all those who passed by. Next door to her lived an atheist who would get so angry at her proclamations he would shout, “There ain’t no Lord!!” Hard times came upon the elderly lady, and she prayed for Allah to send her some assistance. She would pray out loud in her night prayer “Oh Allah! I need food!! I am having a hard time, please Lord, PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!” One night the atheist happened to hear her as she was praying, and decided to play a prank on her. The next morning the lady went out on her porch and found a large bag of groceries. She raised her hands and shouted, “Allah be praised!.” The neighbor jumped from behind a bush and said, “Aha! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries, God didn’t.” The old lady laughed and clapped her hands and said, “ALLAH BE PRAISED. He not only sent me groceries, but he made the devil pay for them!”

Silly Joke #2

A little boy was afraid of the dark. One night his mother told him to go out to the back porch and bring her the broom.The little boy turned to his mother and said, “Mama, I don’t want to go out there. It’s dark.” The mother smiled reassuringly at her son. “You don’t have to be afraid of the dark,” she explained. “Jesus is out there. He’ll look after you and protect you.” The little boy looked at his mother real hard and asked, “Are you sure he’s out there?” “Yes, I’m sure. He is everywhere, and he is always ready to help you when you need him,” she said. The little boy thought about that for a minute and then went to the back door and cracked it a little. Peering out into the darkness, he called, “Jesus? If you’re out there, would you please hand me the broom?”

Silly Joke #3

A husband and wife are sitting quietly in bed reading when the wife looks over at him and asks the question. 
WIFE: “What would you do if I died? Would you get married again?”
HUSBAND: “Definitely not!”
WIFE: “Why not? Don’t you like being married?”
HUSBAND: “Of course I do.”
WIFE: “Then why wouldn’t you remarry?”
HUSBAND: “Okay, okay, I’d get married again.”
WIFE: “You would?” (with a hurt look)
HUSBAND: (makes audible groan)
WIFE: “Would you live in our house?”
HUSBAND: “Sure, it’s a great house.”
WIFE: “Would you sleep with her in our bed?”
HUSBAND: “Where else would we sleep?”
WIFE: “Would you let her drive my car?”
HUSBAND: “Probably, it is almost new.”
WIFE: “Would you replace my pictures with hers?”
HUSBAND: “That would seem like the proper thing to do.”
WIFE: “Would you give her my jewelry?”
HUSBAND: “No, I’m sure she’d want her own.”
WIFE: “Would she use my golf clubs?”
HUSBAND: “No, she’s left-handed.”
WIFE: — silence-
HUSBAND: “sh*t.”

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson