Sort of Like Love? Maybe…
The Best of Worlds?
The condition when you can increase your income but maintain a thriftiness with one’s finances… well, let me tell you, that is the best combination one can find. That is when one can accelerate one’s savings and investments.
Most everyday we see, either personally, or in media, people who are flaunting their wealth. Using their finances to look rich. This is often the way to ruin.
Why?
Don’t we recognize that one should always keep one’s expenses below one’s income, that’s why.
One The Other Hand…
Yes, there is always another point of view. There are people whose income, or assets, allow them to expend unusual amounts of wealth. Media stars, one kind or another of: successful musicians, athletes, and so on. It is a loser’s game to try to live on their scale. Why? Because in that world, one’s perceived needs are always greater than one’s resources. So if we let that world go on its own way without us, we are better for it.
So, What Do You Mean “A Many-Splendored Thing“?
Frugality has so many definitions and so many ways to be expressed, that one’s own definitions of frugality is enough. How each of us defines it for ourselves is the essence of what frugality is. The magical thing about frugality is that we can change its definition as we discover more about ourselves.
Breakfast anyone?
There was a time in my early working career when I ate breakfast every day at a diner in my neighborhood. At the time, I felt it was the only way to get a breakfast substantial enough to sustain me until lunch time. My view of myself and the world was such I could not conceive of an alternative. Eating breakfast at that diner was not supremely expensive, but it was not cheap either. The meager salary I earned in those years was not conducive to eating out daily, even for breakfast. But my limited thinking and perception kept me returning daily to the same locale.
The Human Condition
In retrospect, not only can I now see the limited view I had of myself and my abilities at the time of that breakfast experience, it brings me to perceive that most of life is lived with self-imposed limitations of one kind or another. Much of what I normally see is what I allow myself to see, much of what I can do is what I have allowed myself to do. We limit ourselves and complain of the limitations, always blaming others.
Limited Or Not
Eventually it became clear to me that I needed to put my financial house in order. This realization was a personal earth-shattering revelation. It can take a long time to get to this point, and in my case it took that long time. but it was only the beginning. The reason that this understanding is only a beginning, should be obvious. Understanding something is crucial to change, but unless one does change things, there is no change.
How To Change.
There are numerous sayings that can help us. Well, at least for me. I like good sayings. Here’s one of my favorites, in a more modern rendition compared to its original: “All experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable.” This means that people put up with crap because they can, until they can’t, and only then are they willing to change.
Origin
The original quotation of “All experience…” quote is as follows:
“… all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Where In The Origin
The origin of the original quote is (ta da) The Declaration Of Independence.
Similarly, Another
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” The means that change is required if we want change.
And Another
Here’s one I gravitate to: “Only when I am sick and tired of being sick and tired can I begin to see the possibility of change.” Enough said.
And Then Say It
This leaves us at a pivital point. When I realize that things had gotten to where they were more painful by doing nothing, then I was motivated to change. Of course it should have been easier to change before that point, but often it wasn’t. I’ve moved forward now and can anticipate things more easily now, but at the beginning it was dang hard.
And Frugality Is What?
So when I stated that Frugality Is A Many-Splendored Thing, I point to the fact that frugality can take many forms. That being responsible for oneself is a multilayered process. That change can occur, and that we are not stuck forever. That once we embark on a journey such as getting financially well, the horizons slowly open and continue to open in many more ways, that frugality can take many forms. That initial stages of frugality make further steps possible and easier.
The One Don’t
The One Don’t is don’t denigrate small beginnings. When it comes to money and finances, small beginnings are how the best results start.
How have you found frugality? Send a comment here.
The Argonauts led by Minerva (Reale dell armata di Argonuti con da Minerves), from the series ‘The magnificent pageant on the river Arno in Florence for the marriage of the Grand Duke’ (Le Magnifique carousel fait sur le fleuve de l’Arne a Florence, pour le mariage du Grand Duc), for the wedding celebration of Cosimo de’ Medici in Florence, 1608. The artist is unknown.
The illustration of a Horse from an illustrated book by Tsurusawa Tansaku (died 1797) from the Edo period (1615–1868). 18th century Japan.
View From a Mountain Pavilion is by Li Yin (Chinese, active second half of the 17th–early 18th century), Hanging scroll; ink and color.
The post Frugality Is A Many-Splendored Thing appeared first in Smile If You Dare.