It's a trade off

My dad used to say that everything in life was a trade off.  He said that you traded your energy, your intelligence, your ability, your creativity and sometimes your health for money and that in turn was traded for possessions, transportation, pleasure, food, or satisfaction.  No matter what you did, it was a trade.  He cautioned me to trade wisely.

The older I get, the more I see what he was saying.  You give something up any time you get something and you make the choice what will be on both sides of the giving.

I was young and full of ideas and dreams.  Now I am old and not as full of dreams.  Yes I do still have things I’d like to accomplish and obtain, but many of the old dreams were much less important than they appeared and in the end, I was not ready for the trade off.

Jesus asked “What will a man give in exchange for his soul?”  If the soul is really the conscious person as distinguished from the physical state and the eternal being, then the question takes on a different twist.  What will I give in exchange for my mind? What will I trade for the right to make my own decisions and feel the way I want to feel?

There was a time when I was a somewhat successful, semi-professional musician.  I was sure that my destiny was to become a full blown professional musician.  But when life changed, my decisions changed that concentration of effort which, in turn, changed the ability and that destiny, if ever a true possibility, became a faded dream.  The muscles and the mind are not prepared for that task these days.  So what did I get in trade for that dream?  A whole other life.  In the long of it, I am a teacher and an artist. 

I was once a teacher and a musician.  And at one time I was a teacher of music, a musician, and a freelance artist.  I traded the freelance artist for the ability to develop my own music to a higher level.  Later I gained the artist back, not as freelance, but as a teacher of art. 

Sometimes in the workings of life I haven’t realized the trade I was making.  Later I looked back and saw that I truly did trade one ability for another as much as one outcome for another.  In college, I was offered a free ride and told “the sky’s the limit.”  When I told my advisor I was going to pursue journalism, he said “Why?  We’re offering you the moon and you are settling for a degree in journalism?”  In the end, I found I really had settled and I had wasted my time and education.  I wanted to be a scientific journalist.  But after one short stint, I found all the specialized jobs would separate me from my family and eventually I went back for a different degree.  This time no one offered me the ‘moon.’

In 2004, I traded a 40K plus salary for the chance to start a teaching studio at a much lower monetary income, but a much higher satisfaction rate accompanied by a lower stress level.  It wasn’t the trade I expected in reality, but it was the trade I made.  I wish I could say I’ve never regretted the trade off.  But I can say I’ve never regretted it for long.  Was it a wise choice?  I cannot truly judge that yet, for my life has not yet ended.  And I cannot say what choices await me, but I can say that any choice I make will involve trading one thing for another. 

In the recent past, I traded health and mobility for pie and noodles and had to retrace my steps and trade some pleasure for stout discipline to reclaim the lost progress.  It wasn’t easy to give up the extra servings of sugar and bread.  Each day my mind must decide what I will give up and what I will hold on to.  I’ve learned that a choice by default is still a choice.

And once more I find that the physical is a picture of the spiritual and therefore, must once more ask myself “What will I give in exchange for my soul?”  Do I want to retain the ability to think, choose and feel for myself?  Or will I relinquish that to the ease of acceptance.  When I read a statement, I have a choice:  I can accept it, repeat it, and act on it or I can think, study, and react based on knowledge and wisdom.  Everything I allow into my mind will, in time, change my decisions and my emotions.  Too often, I don’t bother to examine the gate of my mind and what passes through it.  If the emotions are the seat of the issues of life, why do I not more carefully filter what will control them.  If the will controls tomorrow’s result, why do I trade it for ease and entertainment.

I am old.  I feel young sometimes, but I am not.  And yet I understand that for now, I still have choices.  I pray for wisdom, but I must even choose that over foolishness.