To Morrow
Now I know it is very likely when I was thinking yesterday about today and all that implies I should have asked counsel from Young Fuzzy.
As he’s passing through my office I’m wondering about a title for my post, says he, “What?”
Says I, I need a title for my tomorrow’s post, says he, “Well, here you go—”
After listening to the link, I told him I should have had that yesterday, but it’ll work for ‘To-Morrow.’
A person just never knows I guess. As we wander down life’s highway—or perhaps a byway we come across many diverse situations often they should give us moments of pause.
How many times do we hear people raging against the rich? “They’re just greedy people that have robbed others and that’s how they made their money…”
Or somesuch rhetoric goes with the rant, and maybe they’re right, but maybe not. I don’t know how every really rich person made their money. I do know some wealthy folks who have started with nothing and busted their backside to get where they are.
We’ve heard the phrase about those rich farmers and some farmers are rich. I’ve read that “The average age of a beginning farmer is 46.3, much younger than the average age of all farmers (57.5).” And I believe the age of farmers 65 years and older is 34%.
There are many reasons why this has happened. Farming takes a certain kind of rogue operator willing to be buffeted by friends and foes. Farmers are told how much they will pay to put in a crop (such as fertilizer and seed, and they pay for fuel, herbicides, and pesticides). Then those who pay for the finished product tell the farmer how much they’ll get for it.
And it may or may not cover the costs of input, but no one but the farmer cares and the farmers that are still farming (at 57.5 and over) are the ones that often have weathered too many storms to mention—and they overcame.
Back a few years ago someone belittled the accomplishments of then-candidate Donald Trump. “His dad gave him a million dollars, that’s where his money came from.”
It’s quite probable that’s where he got his start, but how many small businesses get loans for start-up costs? A million dollars is quite a bundle, but being an entrepreneur usually isn’t cheap.
Neither construction nor real estate comes cheap and the old adage ‘you have to spend money to make money’, does come to mind. All business has some cost. My daughter did some baking for farmer’s markets back in her teen years.
I helped her with the small start-up cost of ingredients, such as flour, pie fillings, and whatnot for the first pies and rolls for her first market then she took over from there. We were small-time operators so there wasn’t a million dollars invested. The principle is still the same.
I am not defending big operators or condemning them. I am saying you can lose money—even a million dollars—very quickly in any business, so making it work says much about the business person.
On the flip side, there are people that believe poor people are all lazy. There may be more truth on that side, but probably there is a mix in either the rich or the poor labels. As the scriptures say I know how to be abased and how to abound.
In other words, I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Even Dave Ramsey has been poor at least twice. I am amazed by the many honest ways people become wealthy.
Mrs. C.J. Walker was the first self-made woman millionaire in the United States. A black woman, the first in her family born after slavery ended, and nothing was ‘handed’ to her. She made her fortune by producing beauty products designed for black women and began selling products door to door.
There is an interesting story about a man in an expensive car. He exits his car and a poor man asks him, “How many people could you have fed with the money you spent on that car?”
The man answers, “Wait a minute.” He said, “when I bought that car I paid the salaries for quite a few people. Those employees took their wages home to put food on their tables and clothe their families. The question isn’t how many people could I have fed, but how many did I give the opportunity of earning an honest wage, the dignity of a paycheck instead of a handout?”
Philippians 4:
10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity.
11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
