Daily Motivation: What's In Your Wallet?

For a while, in our house, any kind of home and garden channel on TV was bypassed. It was depressing. We were super young, didn’t have a budget to remodel or redecorate any part of our house, go on a vacation to one of the world’s Top 10 beaches, house hunt (or heck, even put our house on the market!), or do anything that would remotely resemble what is neatly packaged into thirty minutes of primetime TV.

Watching those channels made us want.

My husband and I decided that we were simply going to eliminate what made us want so that we would stop feeling bad about our lives. We had (and still have) MUCH to be thankful for! Before we knew it, we were feeling good about our space and lives once again.

I’ll never forget a conversation that I had with my good friend, Kate, from Chicago shortly after this experience. She told me that one of the most difficult challenges we will face as young, hard-working women is learning to be okay with our current station in life. It was such a revelation to me and for the first time, I really opened my eyes to the world around me. At 26, I realized for the first time that I was control of my life. If I didn’t like the way something was going, I could change it. I did not have to wait for life to happen to me, I could make it happen!

So I painted my living room the following spring!

Of course, I did this by earning some extra money outside of my normal monthly income to pay for the color upgrade, but I did it. And it felt good.

As I walked into my school this morning catching up with a colleague, I was once again reminded how easily it is to feel overwhelmed with want. Just two years post-college, she and her significant other have purchased their first home. With their move-in date just around the corner and in the process of filling up the space, she explained how overwhelming, expensive and stressful the entire process has become. Her image of a new home

My mind immediately raced back to my conversation with Kate five years ago. Within just a few minutes, I was able to help my colleague problem solve where to decorate and what to spend money on first so that neither her bank account nor her new home would be empty. As we walked down the hallway to our classrooms she thanked me for helping her be at peace with not filling her new house to the brim on move-in day.

I’d be lying if I said I that I don’t still catch myself in wanting mode periodically. It’s totally natural. What I have learned over the past few years, however, is that desire for a bigger house, grand vacations and a fatter wallet will come in due time. Patience, planning and finding thankfulness in the now will allow for any dream to come true in the future.

Meghan Daniel is a teacher, mother and wife in Denver, Colorado. Meghan writes daily about finding thankfulness in life, love and parenting in her popular blog, Adventures Out West. Follow her on Twitter @mdaniel2.