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Member
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: near Allentown, PA
Posts: 209
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Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: near Allentown, PA
Posts: 209
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riches
mark,
your family, especially your mother, sound wonderful.
your comment about 'elegant simplicity' sounds like something i've thought about for years.....when i was younger i was inclined to be very materialistic (oh, all right - greedy and grasping)....i grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and attached undue importance to having 'stuff'.....with bill's medical problems, and not working, we were very hard up and it was making me crazy.
one day i saw a tv show where jack klugman was a guest, and he said something that changed my view of money....(who'd have thought of jack klugman as a philosopher?)....he was talking about how much he was enjoying doing the show "Quincy" and someone commented that he was now making big money.....he answered along these lines: "there's no such thing as big money....the accountants and investment guys and the tax man might handle it, but it really doesn't matter.....what makes u happy is little money".....he went on to tell the story of his son going to the movies with a friend, and when the movie ended, the friend's car wouldn't start....so his son called and asked him to come and get them....klugman siad that he was watching a playoff game on tv and didn't want to miss the ending, so he told his son to call a taxi and he'd pay for it when they got home....he finished by saying "that's little money, and that's the money that makes u happy".
i'm not sure that my definition of little money would match his, but he's absolutely right....it isn't having thousands in the bank that makes u happy (though that's very nice too).....for me, it's been knowing i could afford to go out for chinese when the urge struck, or be able to send my kids on field trips and things like that....i think u r very wise to have figured it out....i know i'm a much happier person for really enjoying my little money!
and if an actor/comic/philosopher doesn't quite do it for u, how about this quote from Horace that sounds just like what u said: "We are not poor while naught we seek. Happiest to whom high heaven, enough - no more - with sparing hand has given".
didn't mean to go on so long, but i hope u enjoy the money story.
liz
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