My wife and son needed some change for a small purchase that required cash so I began the process of robbing the piggy bank that sits on my desk. After a few minutes of shaking and sorting I retrieved quite the assortment of coins. Quarters were what I was after but there were a few of those pesky dollar coins, the ones that look like quarters and also those imitation gold ones. I decided to “go for the gold” and assembled a small stack for my wife. She quickly responded that she didn’t want to spend them, that she was saving those coins for “the hard times.” I replied that “it already is the hard times.”
She took the quarters instead, but left me with “hard times” bouncing around my head. Was it hard times? Isn’t it always hard times for someone somewhere? What are the distinguishing characteristics of a person experiencing hard times? All that deep contemplation wasn’t making any sense (or cents), and I suddenly remembered what my older brother used to say: “Don’t think too hard it will ruin your brain.” (I think that was his way of trying to gain and maintain intellectual superiority.)
I was ready for a little Financial First Aid. And somewhere in those brain-rattling moments I also recalled fragments of a song that I had heard sung in church a few times: “count your blessings.”
Hmm . . . I still had a closet full of wearable clothes and a fairly well-stocked pantry. The bathroom scale provided further evidence that I wasn’t suffering from any degree of starvation. There wasn’t any imminent danger of foreclosure on the house and no creditors were calling. No one in the family was sick and . . .
Heck, the fact that I even had a piggy bank to rob was enough to convince me that our hard times hadn’t yet arrived!