How Much Is Enough?

How much money should a person earn? How much education should one get? How many books should a person read in their lifetime? How many sermons should you hear and how many seminars and workshops should you attend? How many books should you have in your library?

Here are answers. I should earn all money I can. If a gold watch was your reward after forty years of work and you did your best, ok. But if you did not do your best you only cheated yourself. I should get all education I can. I should read all books I can. I should hear all sermons I can. I should attend all workshops I can. I should have all books I can get my hands on in my library. Why? Because we were all created for growth. And, because there is no shortage of any of these things. God has supplied everything we need for growth, development and maximum potential. Why wouldn't God want you to subscribe to maximum potential? As a parent you would want that for your children wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to be unique and sophisticated, able to hold your own in any conversation and on any topic? Anyone can sit idly by and watch world pass them up and not contribute. And what would you contribute? Value, quality and service to others would be great for starters. If you have deposited nothing, you can withdraw same amount, nothing. You are already in debt if you've made no deposits to your personal account. Your life's ledger will read zero in, zero out. The dates on your tombstone will say nothing between them. Born 1931, died 2003. Contributed nothing to life. All there will be is a dash between those two significant dates.

How tall should a tree grow? As tall as it wants to. How much should you grow during your lifetime? As much as you possibly can because there are no limits as to how much you can grow. The only limits there could be are ones you put on yourself or allow others to put on you. It is called suppression. Limits suppress. Self-imposed limits hold you back. Here is a word of caution. Do not let limits of others hold you back.

Here is something I've noticed about trees. They weather all kinds of storms. Depending where they are growing, storms can be quite severe. Trees take a great deal of punishment in my home State of Maine. As a kid growing up there, I hacked away at many trees with a knife or hatchet. I've stripped bark off a birch tree to make a canoe and tree kept on growing. I've tied ropes and chains in limbs of them to swing from and they kept right on growing. Unless taproot is damaged, a tree can take a lot of punishment and still keep right on growing. The only thing that will hinder greatly upward growth of a tree is if other trees crowding in minimize its space. It gets stunted because it has no place from which to grow upward. It's choked off. There is even a vine that grows around a tree and as it spirals upward it literally takes nutrients from tree for itself by attaching its suckers to tree. That process eventually kills tree, but not vine.

DO NOT LET PEOPLE CROWD YOU. MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL GROWTH. BE A PRODUCT OF YOUR OWN CONCLUSION. WHY NOT? IT'S YOUR LIFE. DO NOT LET PEOPLE ROB YOU OF YOUR DREAMS BY SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF YOU. WATCH OUT FOR THESE PEOPLE AND STAY AWAY FROM THEM. DO NOT LET PEOPLE CONTAMINATE YOUR SOUL AND SPIRIT WITH WORTHLESSNESS. IF THEY DO NOT ADD VALUE TO YOUR LIFE IN A POSITIVE WAY, SUBTRACT THEM FROM YOUR LIST OF FRIENDS. HOW MANY FRIENDS DO YOU REALLY NEED ANYWAY? ONE GREAT FRIEND WOULD BE ENOUGH.

Valentine's Day is a wonderful opportunity to show our feelings, our hopes for future, and our fond memories of past. It should also be a day that we show our love for who we are, where we came from, and where we intend to go. Wait a minute - loving yourself can go to extremes. We can lavish great luxuries on ourselves, much to boredom of friends and those close to us, or we can feel guilty about caring about ourselves. There is a happy medium - a point that we can touch on that will let our heart know we care about person it is beating for, and let our family and friends know that if we care about ourselves, we are well equipped to care about them.