Aug 23 2021 Day 163 Proverbs 12:1–13:25



Wealth is a ransom for a person’s life, but the poor get no threats.

Yes! Striving to get more wealth is basically trading time for money, and I’m much more interested in having time, than having money. Wealth holds us ransom; we strive to get wealth and rarely even see what it’s cost us to attain.

I admit, I’ve never worried about where my next meal is coming from, or had to bargain with myself about paying for shelter or medical care. I do not mean to trivialize the need for some money. And I know that the vast majority of Americans have enough wealth to meet basic needs, and then some. And even with enough to meet our needs, we are slave to earning or having more.

This reminds me of a quip I saw that read “Enough is a choice, not a condition”. Maybe when we begin to remember that as soon as we have food, shelter, and care, we can choose to have enough, and stop being beholden to wealth. We can stop trading our time for money.

We’re in an interesting place in my family. Before my recent unexpected unemployment, I had a very successful downward mobility plan, for the past 20 years. When I was an assistant city manager, I worked a lot of hours, and made significantly more money than I needed. Granted it was government wages, but it was still more than enough. My next logical career move would have been to become a city manager, a position with an immense amount of stress, hours, and even more salary. I opted to quit that race, and moved to work at a non-profit. The position was a lofty one, but it was fewer hours, and even fewer dollars. From there, I subsequently took two smaller jobs, with the last job making about ½ what I’d made in city government. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Now, I find myself unemployed. I have fully traded time for money. I am definitely not being held ransom by wealth now. And from this place of no income, it becomes a clearer decision about future employment. I definitely pursue work that is meaningful and has a reasonable time commitment, rather than following the money. My time is worth a lot. As a matter of fact, it’s priceless.

This morning, I’m thinking about how to carefully reenter the job market, without allowing wealth to hold me ransom.