Your Savings & Investment Department

To Save is building for the future
Your efforts to plan make the steps from where you are to where you desire to be. It is not accomplished in a single move, but takes a series of them—headed in the same direction.

Each step that you take “saves you” from drifting along—“saves you” from indecision and irrelevance.

Then that which is saved is invested in:

• what interests you and draws your attention
• what you commit to build   Visit the Construction Department
• those whom you uphold   Uphold the View
• what makes you happy and joy filled
• what you trust and rely on    Visit the Trust Department

Looking past today and myself

Saving and investing takes notice of the long haul. That means not using everything up—like there’s no tomorrow. Putting something aside at each opportunity assures that the “tomorrow” you want has a chance to happen.

Don’t be so short sighted to think your saving activities should be primarily financial. Other, equally important concerns show themselves in your “quality of life”. Many people who are well off financially learn, too late and to their sorrow, that they’ve come up short in the things that matter even more.

Hold a picture of what (and who) you're saving for

Keep that image on the front of your brain. Take it into account every time you face a choice (major or minor) or a commitment. Ask yourself—does what I’m about to do now make that vision more (or less) likely to happen? Pausing to consider that question before leaping simplifies the intangible costs and trade-offs in our day-to-day activities. Even better, it improves the odds that a short-sighted choice doesn’t steal the show.

Each time you “vote” for that image you give it life. You make it more real. Those repeated votes are a significant investment that alter the paths of events.

Fill in all the details

Make that mental picture of who will benefit big, grand and glorious! Treat it as a priority that’s ahead of competing claims on your time and resources. Fill in all the details. Imbue it with heartfelt intensity151;the passion of caring passionately. This isn’t the time to “settle.” That image needs to be important enough, shiny enough, specific enough to hold up for reconsideration—choice after choice. Unless you’re emotionally committed to it, that dream won’t be any more than a nice idea. Otherwise, it’s too bland and indefinite to have a snowball’s chance.

You absolutely must have a full-fledged, integrated vision of what you passionately want. Or the image definitely won’t be intense enough to re-energize you each time you think about it. Because that very ability to re-energize you its true value.

Even if you don’t reach the fullness of it down the road, the desire to make it happen has already become a living presence, a potent influence in all your choices. Treating your vision as a priority has turned you into a person who matches their vision.

Don't hem yourself in with practicalities

This is not a business plan, but a life plan. A committment of your living breathing self to your vision. The specifics of “how” it will occur represent a secondary consideration. You’re betting your life (in more than one way) that you can make some part of that desire happen in the real world. Single-focused desire has a way of altering circumstances. So even though a vision involves long odds, a feasible path somehow presents itself.

When your picture comes readily to mind, you will recognize those beckoning opportunities. They don’t last long, so you must act quickly and decisively. When you do act, consider the outcome a triumph of vision over everyday obstacles. As you get ever closer, what seemed impossible isn’t as illusive, after all.

Expand your investments

The most profitable investments are made in other people, their efforts and dreams. That’s called upholding. It can occur on many different levels: mentally, emotionally, socially, as well as in the usual tangible ways (money, resources, a helping hand). Often the person being upheld does not even know it. But they feel the benefit somehow. Read the BonBon on Upholding a View.

Bear in mind, being an upholder is less about the other person or yourself (the individuals involved), as much as investing in the kind of world you want to live in. Such efforts literally change the playing field—for everyone. Not too shabby.

Your reward shows in your fullness of life

And you’ve started to reap the benefits already—a person who acts upon their priorities and vision. This return on invetment (ROI) isn’t like the “gold watch” you work a lifetime to earn. You’re creating a better world and a better YOU—all at the same time.

Committed and steady saving is the investment of your lifetime.

_____________________ Copyright © 2005, Off the Page Press
The Joyful Banker - A Parody of all things Financial
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