A Bulging Wallet Overstuffed With Angels Pay: The struggle ends where gratitude begins.

Wetalk a lot here about making money on this platform and how to monetize our social media. This pragmatism is all well and good. We all need to eat, and if we can support ourselves with the products of our minds and ideas, then the world can become a better place. I wanted to shift the focus for a moment to the satisfaction we receive that transcends cash.

I got a comment the other day on one of my posts, and it stuck with me. It elevated me. Every comment I receive sticks with me.

Most of my comments are positive. I don’t tend to attract trolls. I guess it’s because I don’t write about controversial topics. I think about them, but I don’t write about them.

My goal is to share things that I hope could become an inflection point in someone’s life. I share what has been inflection points in my life. All my ideas have been road-tested in the crucible of my life experience. Writing them is a way to burn them deeper into my life practice. Writing is a mnemonic device.

And then I share them like messages in bottles. Sometimes they wash up on the secret shores of another’s private island.

These messages bring things into focus and help keep me positive, productive, and happy. They are gems that I have come across or have come across my mind, and I want to share them. Some are from reading, and some are from reflection.

Reading can teach you the best of what others already know.

Reflection can teach you the best of what only you can know.

- James Clear

It’s the moments of pondering and self-reflection that stamp the contents of a book into our minds.

My goal is to share topics and ideas that motivate me in the hopes that they may ignite a similar spark in others.

That is what this comment did. It brought me back to my why; why I write and publish and create and share. It’s for the angels’ pay of impacting someone with ideas that puts them on the path or inspires them to redouble their efforts, a helping hand, a little nudge, a tiny inflection point.

You can’t change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

-Jim Rohn

A small course correction will lead to a whole new destination. After all, we are what we repeatedly do. Change your attitude, change your life.

Affirmations are quotes, and messages that remind you of the person you want to be, the behavior you want to adopt, and the life you want to live. By reading empowering affirmations every day, you prime your mind for success.

It’s important to me to keep recalibrating my sights high because I know how susceptible I am to lowering my goals.

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

- Michelangelo

It’s seductive, and I can easily fool myself.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

- Richard Feynman

Every moment of our existence, we are either growing into more or retreating into less. I use affirmations to challenge myself not to settle.

We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.

Bhagavad Gita

My Twitter feed is a constant stream of affirmations. It acts as a radio beacon to help me locate my tribe.

This particular comment came from a Twitter post. Here is the comment

“Thank you for this. My life has just changed. Revolutionary mental shift. Amen.”

Here is the post that elicited the comment:

It is a paraphrase of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here is his original.

“War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thought the idea was well put, but I don’t think war should be glamorized, and that is one reason I wanted to change the topic while retaining its insight. I wanted to grab the nugget and discard the chaff. There is another phrase I don’t like but makes the point, “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” I wanted to keep the baby and nurture it.

Literature, philosophy, art, and most of human progress is a dialogue with the past. We are social animals, and language is how we communicate. Changing a proposition or idea even slightly and memorializing it in something concrete like language is a way to participate in our species’ progression.

I like to turn over ideas, change them, polish them, and take off any rough edges that historical perspective may have exposed. It’s like working with a gem tumbler where the sand polishes the stones.

It helps me practice developing the clarity and quality of my thoughts. It starts out being for me, and then I share. Maybe something will beneficially strike someone else.

Glorifying war is one aspect that I wanted to change. Another part that I will go back and change now is the use of the word “men.” Back in Emerson’s time, that gender limit was maybe a given, but not now. I will change it to “person” or “they/them.” If anyone has a good idea, please post a comment.

When I changed the saying and posted it, I wasn’t sure it made total sense, and I wasn’t sure if it would strike anyone as it did me. These types of saying can operate like Rorschach prints and be open to interpretation. Sometimes they hit you right if you are in a particular space, and sometimes they bounce off.

A portion of my posts on Twitter are from a repeating carousel that I load with sayings that I think are powerful. They post over and over and patiently wait to meet the right person at the right moment.

I was so gratified to get the comment and feel that kindred spirit feeling. It’s why I do it. It’s why we all write and read here. It’s Angel’s pay delivered to a mere mortal. I am in deep gratitude.

For everyone who has ever left me a comment, I say thank you. You have made my days, and I sincerely appreciate it. Peace.

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