Jim Rohn says, and I happen to agree, that the way to fix money stress is to have a lot.  It might not fix your other problems in your life.  It won't necessarily make you happy but your money stress will go away.

That makes perfect sense in my head!  Sure there are other ways of fixing money stress.  You could become a monk, you could convince yourself that you don't need the money, or you could live by a budget but, quite frankly, none of those appeal to me.  Okay, I lie.  The monk one appeals to me but I'm married, have 2 dogs, 4 cats & 2 rats.  I feel responsible to them to make money so I've chosen this path I'm on now.

And that's what brings me to the point of this muse.  Before I had financial responsibilities, I wanted to save the world.  I had a real fire burning inside me and there was nothing anyone could say that could turn it out.

In my mid-teens I was reading books about "Accelerated Learning", "Mind Power" and more.  Long before "The Secret" ever came out, I had at least a shallow understanding of its basic principles.

I dropped out of school and set out to conquer the world.  And, make no mistake, I achieved a lot in the 7 or 8 years that followed... 

I got my first real-world job (I'd been working for extra cash since I was 13), got my driver's licence, got my 2nd job, bought my first car, got medical aid, left the job scene to start my own business, had some tough months, had some flipping amazing months, moved in with the hottest girl alive, got household insurance, got married and lots of other stuff in between.

By my standards, I've actually been very successful and achieved much of what I set out to do when I first wrote my "Before I turn 30" goals-list.  I haven't quite "arrived" yet but I've certainly met and overcome many challenges that had others defeated.

But something else happened over these last 7 or 8 years.  I gradually became a slave to money.

Make no mistake, money is a wonderful thing if you earn it because you want it and the things it can buy but not if you earn it because you're afraid you might starve otherwise, or be uninsured and stand the risk of losing all you own, or lose your car, or lose something else.

When you're earning money because you're afraid of losing what you have, something happens and you lose your fire.  Heck, I'd say you lose your life.

I have big visions for my life and I fully expect to be a multi-millionaire within the next couple of years but the trouble is that in my daily struggle to survive, I often (not sometimes, often) lose sight of my bigger goals.

And that's why I think I am where I am today and I'm not where I could be.  Each time you lose sight of your goals and you get stuck into what you're doing day-in and day-out, you forget to do things that serve your higher purpose.  You forget to make that call, go to that meeting, answer that phone (I almost never do!), build that business, and the list goes on.

Instead, you avoid those calls, make just enough and, bit by bit, if you're not careful and you don't wake up to what's happening around you, your goals slip a little further away from you until, eventually, you can barely see them in the horizon.

That, my friend, is the scariest thing I could ever imagine for myself.  To fail to achieve what I've set out to do.  And if you're afraid of it too, I recommend you join me in my resolve to stop being afraid and to rekindle your passion for life because FEAR is what got us here in the first place.  Find that fire within you, remind yourself why you want the things you want and then set out every day to do a little something that brings you closer to your dream, your vision, your goals.

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light." - Dylan Thomas