if only I had some monies...

I'm sure you think about this stuff too, after all, if we share something in common is probably our human quirks. But, this doesn't mean that this type of thinking, these little mental treats we give ourselves don't have a practical use, hence we should suppress them. The funny thing is though, we may be quick to share some of these plausible scenarios with friends and family because we are safely distant from them, but in truth, if one of those "if only" situations were to happen, we might not be that happy.

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My father used to say to me when I was growing up in a very dismissive manner. "son, don't worry about money... you have none" - I remember how this used to annoy me, as I was on my way to build some financial independence from the family. You see, growing up I wasn't given an allowance per say, and all transactions had to be requested, individually processed.

littlemeno: "I wanna buy ice cream, can I have a buck?"

parental figure:"Your request is denied... please try again later"

These dynamics made me want to make my own money from a very early age. The first time I actually got some good money to do work I was about 15 years old. My curiosity for computers, assembling them, fixing them, compiling linux kernels and what have you, had started to pay off. I think my mom was pretty proud of the fact that her 15 year old kid was able to assemble computers with a butter knife, so she would often talk about it with her friends.

The funny thing is that the moment I started to make some money, was the moment I started to really worry about money. Depending on where you stand on this philosophical conundrum, you might be saying to me that you know exactly what I'm talking about or that I need to go to bed. However, the point I'm trying to convey here, is that the idea of "control" was beginning to sprout inside my young idealistic brain.

Maybe, that is precisely why the very idea of money is so important to us. The thought that with it we can have control over our lives. Now, if this is true or not, that is a question of much debate because as with many things, it's all about perspective and biases.

A tale Two fishes

_{A foreign man walks up to a native south american who is sleeping on the side of a road. The man seems upset, undignified. After all... How is it that this healthy looking local man is just sleeping instead of working the land. The foreigner tells the poncho wearing "hero" that he should be ashamed of himself for sleeping in the middle of the day. The hero of my little story looks back and says, that he doesn't understand what the problem could be.}

_{The foreigner makes his case: "You should be working, maybe doing something with this land, catching some fishes in the river to sell in the market... something. Not just sleep there all day, do you know how to fish? are you good for anything?"}

_{With a very calm face our hero replies:"I'm actually pretty good at fishing, funny you ask" - The foreigner continues: "Then go catch twenty fishes or something like that and sell them in the market, be useful" As soon as he finished the last sentence the native man looked at him in confusion and said: "i can only eat two, Why would I catch more than I need?}

I realize I've been taking you for a weird ride with this post, and I will admit I'm partially to blame. But, I'm attempting to give you a tiny piece of my brain so that you can understand my somewhat abstract points. You see, the way I see it, someone who is more in touch with what he or she needs, is a lot more likely to feel accomplished that someone who is just in the quest for more for the sake of more.

In my view, if we spend our lives pulling fishes out of the water, not two, but all the fishes we possibly can, because that is exactly and precisely what we are supposed to do, then, we might be chasing "necessities" that we don't really have. Now, this is not to say everyone needs to only take two fishes, the point to be made here is that being aware of how many fishes you need is part of the equation for balance.

I suspect you might be a little closer to understanding what 3am @meno is talking about at this point in time, and that is some great progress. Because, honestly this whole thing, this whole blog, this whole little experiment, this corner of the internet I've secured for myself, is nothing but some personal exploration with some outward exposure.

In other words....I'm trying to figure out how many fishes I need. Because plenty of times in my life i've been a captive of the "if onlys" and I'm a little tired of accepting the foreigners in my framework of life understand.

Does that make sense? I hope it really does. I mean, who am I to tell you how many fishes you need? What car you should drive? What house you should own? How many kids you should have? - How could I have any sort of authority or anyone for that matter to design for you a perfect existence, tell you the steps to get there and then shame you if you don't?

Who is the one that is supposed to eat the two fishes after all? or three, or four? - You see what I mean?

I'm slowly waking up to this little truth. The idea that I would live any different, that I would be able to conquer all fears, travel all over the world, spend more time with my loved ones, "if only I had more money" is possibly a little dishonest. There are many things money can't buy and I'm not shilling mastercard, of course not.

Maybe this is the year were I'm supposed to figure out this very question, this complicated yet simple question: