Saturday

Spend Fearlessly, With Wisdom


-

Many people are in ignorance of the fact
that gifts and things are investments,
and that hoarding and saving invariably lead to loss.

"There is that scattereth and yet increaseth;
and there is that withholdeth more than is meet,
but it tendeth to poverty."

For example: I knew a man who wanted
to buy a fur-lined overcoat.

He and his wife went to various shops,
but there was none he wanted.

He said they were all too cheap-looking.

At last, he was shown one, the salesman said
was valued at a thousand dollars,
but which the manager would sell him for five-hundred dollars,
as it was late in the season.

His financial possessions amounted to
about seven hundred dollars.

The reasoning mind would have said,
"You can't afford to spend nearly all you have on a coat,"
but he was very intuitive and never reasoned.

He turned to his wife and said,
"If I get this coat, I'll make a ton of money!"
So his wife consented, weakly.

About a month later, he received
a ten-thousand-dollar commission.

The coat made him feel so rich,
it linked him with success and prosperity;
without the coat he would not have received the commission.

It was an investment paying large dividends!

If man ignores these leadings to spend or to give,
the same amount of money will go
in an uninteresting or unhappy way.


For example: A woman told me, on Thanksgiving Day,
she informed her family
that they could not afford a Thanksgiving dinner.

She had the money, but decided to save it.

A few days later, someone entered her room
and took from the bureau drawer
the exact amount the dinner would have cost.

The law always stands back of the man
who spends fearlessly, with wisdom.

-

...from the book, "The Game of Life and How to Play It,"
by Florence Scovell Shinn