Ask Not How to Make Money

As I grow in maturity, I find it fascinating how many pieces of advice I simply did not understand. I read them as rules, obligations, or commandments of how we should behave because that behavior is what makes a person good, or loving, or patriotic. And it was never about that. Commonly known idioms are not just rules, they are advice for how to get the most out of life. But for the immature, it goes right over our heads.

Take John F Kennedy's statement, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." To the less mature, it can be reinterpreted in a few different ways. One might interpret it cynically as the government trying to squeeze more out of us. Some might see it as echoing patriotic duty. Others might consider it generically that selfish people take without giving. Yet more might see it as a call to how to create a better community if more people gave rather than took. 

We will live our happiest life when we stop focusing on how to make money and instead focus on how we are valuable.

To the mature, there is significant wisdom in the concept. Rarely, if ever, do we stop and consider how we wish to contribute to society. Instead, we all too often focus on how we wish to make money, how big a house we want, what new gadgets we'd like to acquire, and what activities we'd like to pursue to pass our time. Most of us don't even consider the community. But considering the community is not just for others, it is the most profound thing to consider even for ourselves.

We will live our happiest life when we stop focusing on how to make money and instead focus on how we are valuable. If we learn who we are, how we can serve the community, what skills we offer to the world, we can begin to shape our lives around such things. By doing so, we orient ourselves around what we enjoy doing and what will provide us an intrinsic sense of value. This does not happen when we go to a job strictly for the money. If we're there for money and not because it's where we find ourselves authentically contributing in a way we enjoy, then a significant portion of our lives will be frustrating and draining. We won't have as much time for the things we enjoy and we'll have even less time and energy to determine what gives us energy. Working strictly for money destroys us. Working as a passion with knowledge of who we are benefiting is fulfilling. And this isn't just about career, either.

The best thing we could ever do for ourselves is to learn how we can be a contributing member of society—even if that doesn't make a lot (or any) money. Because, as we all should know by now but tend not to believe, money is not what fulfills us. Money is not the cure-all. Money makes life survivable, but it does not bring our joy if we don't know who we are and how we serve. We bring our best to the community when, in love, we become our authentic selves. And authenticity is not a simple label. Walking around with a sexual preference on one's shirt is not being authentic any more than wearing a MAGA cap is. These are not who we are nor are they how we serve. These are labels about us and nothing more. They often sow division rather than unite and that is not particularly useful for cohesion.

So how about you? Do you know who you are and how you serve?