Wherever your treasure is, there is your heart. (Mt. 6, 19-23).
Have you ever asked yourself this question: what is the most important thing in my life? , Surely. But, have you surprised yourself spending more time, more resources, more attention to other things that supposedly are not so relevant and yet have been installed in your life displacing those that you had proclaimed as "sacred"? Worse yet, have you ever woken up with the feeling that you have lost something you love and that it is too late to get it back?
If it has ever happened to you, do not worry, you are not alone. Many people like you lose their way and, if they have asked one of these questions, it is because they have triggered an alert within themselves to correct it. In fact, it is healthy that we always have this uncertainty, we were born with this self-correction mechanism that some call consciousness and it is the one that is responsible for driving us to be better and better, if you think that there is nothing to change in your life because everything is well, worry.
I am passionate about my work, I enjoy what I do, I like to achieve goals and overcome great challenges. I am inspired by the stories of great men and women who pursued their dreams until they achieved them.
It's that I love adventure, starting great things, savoring victory after the Stations of the Cross. I must confess that, although it seems like a happy story of a man who does what he likes and although it has brought me a lot of satisfaction, I have also received complaints from friends, co-workers and especially from my own family.
It has been difficult for me to balance the balance that supports my aspirations and the desires and needs of those around me, especially the emotional and time needs.
A few days ago my wife sent me a beautiful story about a teacher who filled a glass jar with tennis balls, then filled the empty spaces with smaller balls, then sand, and then coffee. At each step she asked if the jar was full. The students, who did not take into account the small empty spaces, always thought that the jar was full.
He then explained that tennis balls were the most important things in life and other balls and sand the least. This to make them reflect on what would happen we fill the jar with less important things like sand, then there will be no room for the more important things like tennis balls.
It is curious that we all come to think that we are doing well when we work twelve hours a day, when we postpone our family appointments due to a work commitment, when we sit for hours and hours in front of the computer checking our account on Facebook or our email.
I have known few people who walk in the opposite direction and of those few people, most are very old people who have begun to value time with their grandchildren, with their friends, with their favorite hobby because they realize how little time what remains and how life and health have fared in the distractions of this vain world.
We all wonder then, what happens in this society that is going crazy. There is more and more noise, crime, robbery, immorality, impunity. Much of the problem is that we have given value to things that have no real value. One of these things is money.
When countries go into crisis and it becomes international news, the media only talk about their economic problem. Almost no one talks about its people, the level of exploitation to which they have been subjected, bad education, legal and illegal drugs, divorces, parents who abandon their children, crimes with impunity. It is a long chain of evils that we have attributed to the economic problem, as if to say: it does not matter what happens to people as long as the economy grows. This is why large capitals prefer to save banks and large companies in bankruptcy rather than save the environment or people who are starving in the world.
Now, how have we convinced ourselves of such a lie? It is the result of years and years of education, literature, commercial and state policies of people who were educated with these values. The end result is a society that re-educates its children based on them and reproduces the cancer that will eventually collapse our lives on the planet.
I want to illustrate this with an example. On FaceBook I am part of two groups: “personal finance” and “parents and children”. A few days ago I saw with great amazement that the largest number of questions, comments and "likes" are in "personal finances", almost no one thinks about "parents and children" even though they have practically the same number of members.
This is what I meant at the beginning when I said that many times we dedicate ourselves to something very different from what we say is more important. From this it can be deduced that at least for the members of these two groups the financial situation has a higher priority than the relationship with their parents or with their children.
A few days ago I went to the doctor and after interviewing me he told me: "You must exercise, eat better, sleep more and work less." And I seriously asked myself: how many times will I have to listen to this same advice throughout my life to make up my mind to do it once and for all? Do I have to wait for a heart attack, ulcer or cancer to react?
And you know why we abuse ourselves, our employees, our children, our vehicles, the environment, etc., in this way for money, because we already think that we cannot live without it and this is a big lie of the one that they have convinced us and with which we self-enslave.
Before founding my company, I thought that when this happened I would have more time, I would be the master of my agenda. Could not be farther from the truth. Now I work more, I get much more stressed and I have less time. Because the problem is not whether you are an employee or not, but your habits in managing the resources you have in each case and enough patience and humility to go on achieving small goals until you achieve your big goals. Quite the contrary, in both cases, we despair and the ambition for a better salary, a better position, a great project, forces us to exploit and exploit ourselves unrestrictedly.
It is a difficult decision after we grow up and get used to this life that always postpones happiness, coexistence, good education, spirituality and health, but I am more than convinced that it is the new path ancestrally revealed by philosophers, teachers and guides. We must empty our jar, enter the most important things and then patiently fill the empty spaces with the other things that almost always come in addition.
26 Behold the birds of the sky, they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather in barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you much better than them?. 27 But which of you can, in grief, add to her stature one cubit? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Repair the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither work nor spin; 29 But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of them. 30 And if the grass of the field that is today, and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, God dresses it thus, will not he do much more to you, men of little faith? 31 Do not be distressed, then, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we cover ourselves with? 32 For the Gentiles seek all these things, that your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,and all these things will be added to you. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow; that tomorrow will bring his fatigue: his eagerness is enough for the day. Matthew 6: 26-34.
