Maurice Denis was a recent participant in the Desiderata Project, hosted by Bob Clubbs on his blog “Every, Every Minute.”

Each participant was given a section of Desiderata to focus on and share their own experience or thoughts…Here’s what Maurice was given and how he laid it out…

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.

The three Phrases that changed my relationship with money forever:

The person who said money can’t make you happy, never had any money. I heard a man say that to my father and I never forgot it. I grew up most of my life not having and mostly wanting. At young age my life became an endless stream of desiring the things I thought I would never have. As early as I can remember I searched for ways to make money, to better myself and live a different life. I went from lemonade stand to Amway before I was in middle school. By the time I was in high school I had already started paper trading stocks. I majored in finance in college and became a stockbroker trainee a month after graduation. The chase was on… all the things I never had I was determined to acquire. I bought a house and a new car, I thought I had arrived. Then one day I stopped long enough to stop letting my fears create my reality. I realized I had everything I had ever wanted and I felt incomplete, still wanting, and still desiring. I knew at that moment that I needed to stop wanting, to stop desiring and start living. I grew up thinking that once I made a certain amount of money, I would be happy.

John Lennon, said “life is what happens when your making other plans.” I spent so much of my life waiting until I had enough money and then I would… Once I had a thousand dollars, once I had ten thousand dollars. I would wait for the fifteenth and thirtieth to value my worth. I was in a constant state of wanting.

This brings me to the second phrase: It’s not how much you make it’s how much you spend…

Don’t let your possessions own you, own your possessions.

I was living my life accumulating things that were contributing to the anxiety and fear that I had around money. The more I made the more I spent. I was chasing my tail. The car I drove and the clothes I wore were all an attempt to become something I thought I couldn’t be without money. Be true to yourself, pursue your passions and the money will come. The more you do what you like the better you become at it. The better you become at it the more you do it… one day you will make a living doing what you love. I will leave you with this last phrase.

The best things in life are free… so go on a living spree! Live today as if were your last, turn someday into today and make each day a perfect day because you were fortunate enough to live it!

That phrase changed my relationship with money forever.

It’s interesting how we fall into patterns in our lives.

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