do you LIVE or simply EXIST

Money. 

It’s been called the root of all evil.  

Money has never really been my friend. We’ve had more of a long-distance relationship. Everytime I wanted to get closer to money, the farther away it seemed to run. :)

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned more about my relationship with money. I grew up with a misunderstanding about money because my parents didn’t teach me about the importance of saving or investing. I can’t blame them for it, though. They didn’t know how to use money either, so how could they have taught their children?

My family was not dirt poor, but finances were always tight. I look back on my family’s use of money, and I now understand our lack of money was not due to not having any, it was about the attitude we had about money and how we used it.

As soon as money came into our lives, it was spent right away. If somehow there was extra money, we found something to spend it on.

There was never a discussion of saving for the future. Or investing. Investing was something only rich people did because they had extra money to invest.

I’ve now learned that saving and investing is something we must all do if we ever hope to escape the rat race. I’ve learned Money is the tool we use to achieve our goals. Money, itself, should never be the goal.

Read

One way to change your view of money is to read books like The Richest Man in Babylon or Think and Grow Rich or Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Money is like a seed

Back before there were genetically engineered crops, a farmer would harvest his corn, save some of it for planting the following year, and sell or eat the remaining. If he didn’t save some seeds for the future, he would end up with nothing. He would have to go out to beg, borrow or buy more so he could feed his family. In otherwords, if he didn’t invest some of his corn this year, he couldn’t grow a crop next year.

This is the same lesson we need to know about money. Most of us (at least most of the people I have known) live paycheck to paycheck. They spend everything they make, and save nothing for the future. So they have to continually work, spend, work, spend, work …. You get the idea. But what happens when you can’t work anymore? What then?

The investment-minded worker knows to set aside a portion of his pay for the future. As described in The Richest Man in Babylon, each of your dollars is a soldier you can put to work to earn more soldiers.

One of the best things that happened for my future was investing in a 401k. I didn’t like it at first. It was forced on me by municipal government I worked for after college. They had no retirement plan, so everyone was forced to contribute at least 6% to a 401k. They contributed 3%. I hated it at first. Then as the money began to grow, I saw the wisdom of it. Had they not forced me to save, would I have had anything at all for my future? Probably not.

Financial education is something they don’t teach in school. I belive if every grade had a mandatory class on saving, investing, and business, we would all be better off.

It’s generally accepted that the older you get, the harder it will be to save enough. The Simple Dollar just posted this review of Start Late, Finish Rich that may give hope to those who think it’s too late.

I encourage all of you to think about your financial future. It’s never too soon. As a matter of fact, if the average 18-year-old started a reasonable retirement plan, they could retire as a millionaire without much difficulty. And if they were aggressive about it, they could retire well before the normal retirement age.

I was sad to find out Gary Gygax had died. Gygax was a co-creator of the game Dungeons and Dragons. I never looked up to him like a hero or anything, but I have always been appreciative of what roleplaying has done for my life.

I was a very shy kid in Jr. High. I didn’t really come out of my shell until High School, when I started roleplaying. I became one of those AD&D geeks.

I played AD&D through High School and for several years thereafter when I joined the Air Force. I played with different groups of people from all over the country and outside our country.

Why am I telling you this? Because believe roleplaying games are one way to develop imagination and social skills. I know, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Geeks are not known for their social skills.” Let me give you an example.

Roleplaying games are good for development

In Jr. High when it came time for speech class, I was frozen. I mumbled my speech, couldn’t make eye contact, and my heart would nearly beat out of my chest. I hated public speaking. Outside of the classroom I didn’t make eye contact with others. I didn’t feel comfortable speaking to people I didn’t know, or even those I kinda knew.

Then, as I began to roleplay, I found it easier to speak in front of groups. It was simple: I just had to pretend it wasn’t me speaking. I became someone else, a politician, a wiseman, an expert. I even pretended to be someone else who was pretending to be me, if that makes any sense. I “steped out of myself” and in so doing, I left my fear of speaking behind.

Soon, public speaking became natural. Eventually I realized I wasn’t even pretending anymore. It was me speaking. And I liked it.

Some could say it wasn’t roleplaying in particular that helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, but just the fact that I joined a social group that happended to be composed of roleplayers. Joining a social groups is one of the points Scott Young writes about in his post You Won’t Get Anywhere With Poor Social Skills at Pick The Brain.

I choose to believe it was roleplaying, at least in my case.

Develop creativity

Roleplaying games helped develop a my creativity. Soon, instead of playing in a game, I was running them. I was devising my own adventures for groups of friends. I even created a series of adventures based on the book, The Shattered World, that drew notice from the author, Michael Reaves.

My creative nature has helped me to “think outside of the box” on many projects in my career. I’ve often been complimented, and given an occasional reward, for my creative approaches to problems.

I don’t believe I would have followed the same path had I not been a roleplayer. I have no idea where I would have ended up if I hadn’t been able to overcome my fear of public speaking. Maybe I would have overcome it another way, but I’m not so sure. I know that roleplaying helped exercise and develop my creative nature.

It’s now been years since I’ve played. I’ve grown out of it I guess.

Thank you, Gary Gygax. Your spearheading the table-top roleplaying genre helped one shy kid become a self-confident man.

Readers, tell me, what is your experience with roleplaying games?