“Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well people can’t take their eyes off you.” – Maya Angelou
The other day you broke my heart.
And it was nothing that you knew you did. In my seven years of being your aunt, I know your heart—and that there’s no room for malice anywhere in it.
I guess the huge heart, all that bubbling enthusiasm and spirited curiosity I’ve noticed over these last few Aunt Mandy years made that one sentence you uttered off-hand in the car on the way to get ice cream so absolutely sad:
“Well, Aunt Mandy, money is, like, the most important thing in the world.”
What I said to you then—after I remembered to breathe—went something like this:
“Nicholas, I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. Money is NOT the most important thing in the world. It can’t buy you friends or other stuff that really matters.”
Hey, I admit, as inspiring monologues go, it wasn’t much. But the verbal arts, you’ll discover as you get older and wiser and realize I’m not one of the age’s sages, has never been my thing.
That’s why I’m writing you this short letter. I hope someday when you think about what you want to be when you grow up, you will read it and remember.
Here goes:
First off, I have to come clean: There’s a chance one of the reasons money has never impressed me is because I never had much of it.
As someone who grew up with help from the kind taxpayers of the state of Pennsylvania, it still never occurred to me when I was in school to pursue some career that would make me a six-figure superhero.
What mattered then was what mattered all along and still—what always filled the gaps between what money can buy and what it can’t: Love.
And while philosophers like Ralph Waldo Emerson have argued that people don’t choose their passion, their passion chooses them, I think most of the great minds have agreed that you have to follow it.
Chase it down if you have to.
For me, that passion has always been for words. For writing. Later, for the swishing deadlines that help define the best of what journalism has always been: Literature in a hurry, as they say.
In an introduction to copy editing course, I recall a professor telling the class in the first few minutes of the session that “journalists never make money. If your goal is to be rich, you might want to leave now.”
And I remember at least one student stood up a moment or two later, grabbed his bag and books and walked out the door without looking back.
I remember being in a state of awe. I didn’t know whether to respect the guy or to feel sorry for him. On one hand, he knew what he wanted. But on the other hand, if being rich was it, maybe he didn’t after all.
Nicholas Sparks wrote, “The saddest people I’ve ever met are ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand and without them, any happiness is only temporary because there’s nothing to make it last.”
So, I took a vow of poverty and became a journalist.
OK. That’s kind of an inside joke—something a mentor often teases about. I make a more than fair wage. All I’m saying is I’ll probably never make millions writing the news.
But that’s OK with me. Because I love it. Because when my alarm goes off in the morning I might hit the snooze button (a few times), but I rarely bemoan myself or utter a FML.
Now, maybe you will become an astronaut as you’ve said you want to. And those dudes? They make some decent cash. Maybe you’ll want to be a doctor. Maybe you’ll be a high-priced attorney.
That’s fine, too. It’s fine to make money. And if you make tons of it, even better (and remember your old Aunt Mandy. And that she likes lilacs and lilies). But don’t base your choices on what will get you the most of it.
I think that’s what always offends me about obscene displays of wealth, Nicholas: People who flaunt labels or flash and brag about expensive toys seem to expect some sort of adoration or respect for the things they own.
When really, Nicholas, a shiny new Bentley and a $2.5 million home situated on a golf course don’t make you a good person.
Mostly heart does that.
So that’s what I was trying to tell you the other day: No, money isn’t the most important thing.
Please remember that.
Love,
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