A Patron-izing Idealist

What do you need from life to be happy? What would satisfy your requirements. I am a pretty simple person, I like basic things and do not require a great deal of fuss to enjoy a moment.

When people dream of fast cars and luxury, I see practical and enough to not have to worry about the price of a meal at an average restaurant. This isn't to say I wouldn't like a little extra but the idea of collecting for the sake of collecting bores me. It always has.

What I have never really understood though is how to get comfortable and get a enough that I do not have to worry if in the not too distant future my daughter needs to go on a school trip or needs a pair of skis. I am a hand-me-down kid, I had very little that was bought directly for me and with three older brothers, there was no need for my parents to buy more. Other than the decade or more gap between fashions, which did not concern them at all.

I remember one trip where I was about seven and my mum was taking my three year old sister to ballet class. I was sitting in the back for the long drive reading golden books, the ones with the golden spine. I had read several already and mentioned this just before throwing up over myself. This is how I found out I get sick if I read in a moving vehicle.

My mum was angry because we were going to be late but we stopped at a suburban department store and we rushed into get a change of clothes. I got a grey fleece tracksuit with Tonka trucks on blue patches. One patch on the leg, the other where a breast pocket would be.

I loved that tracksuit and wore it until it fell apart. It wasn't the style, or the Tonka branding as I did not care for such things, it was because it was mine. It was the first time I recall wearing clothes that were specifically bought for me. As sick as I felt in the car, for the rest of the drive, I remember looking at my leg with the blue patch and the yellow truck on it and feeling what I can only describe as comfort.

It wasn't happiness or pride, it was comfort in knowing that what I had was mine. Of course, I didn't buy it myself, but in the mind of a seven year old, that wasn't the point. This has changed now though.

I wrote a post yesterday about networking, you can read it here and how some people find it hard to sell themselves and their content is likely to suffer. Of course, I am one of those people. It isn't about my inability to socialize, it is my inability to sell myself while doing it.

Give me a product I can support and I can sell it no matter what the area, but when it comes to hawking my own wares, I am awkward and unwilling. Perhaps I do not believe in myself enough or perhaps I believe I am a fraud but I find it very difficult to talk about myself with the serious intent to push my own agenda.

I know my experience, I know my skill set, I know I am not a fraud. But, perhaps this lack of confidence in selling myself on makes people believe that I am, that I am unsure in what I say. This is something I must work at as no one else is going to sell me, they have their own lives to think about, their own worries.

If I had a lot of money, I wouldn't change much in what I do, the luxury would not increase significantly, the car would still be practical, probably electric. I wouldn't spend my time on a constant holiday, or eating in the fancy restaurants each night. I would look to work at helping others not have to worry about the basic things in life.

I would look for those struggling but pushing and support them so they can have the space to grow and develop, to reach more of their potential. It is those people who are likely to make a better world, to save this one. The ones from adversity that even through the pressure they continually look to improve.

Like a patron of old, I would give grants to those I think are worthy to be supported until they can support themselves. It doesn't actually require much I think. At Steemit for example, if I had 10 x 100 dollar votes per day, I would support 16 writers who need it. Give them each 50 a day. That kind of money can make a huge difference in a life, it would in mine. The last two could be split into 20 parts for up and coming potential, maybe the younger ones.

I would spend time each week staying in contact with them if they wanted, helping them how I could in other ways too, not to collect more for me but get them to a point they can share more of themselves. Pay it forward so to speak, 16 people are manageable to get to know personally. Perhaps they could find a few they want to support too, maybe it would become a process of continual improvement where we continually look to find the struggling and give them the space to find their potential.

In this way I am very idealistic and if I was in that position I have little doubt I would do anything other than all I can to help those in need. I do not believe in charity unless it is in extreme cases, I believe in effort, attempt and heart to push on through the difficulty that sometimes falls like autumn rain, frequent and heavy.

Of course, I would not be bound by Steemit in that position, that would just be one of the channels I may use, an attractive one considering the ease and potential spread. I would love to be able to one day bring that feeling to as many people that I felt in the car that day wearing that tracksuit. That sense of comfort in knowing that something was mine. Of course, as an adult, that is no longer enough, I also want to have earned it, deserved the reward. I don't want any charity in this life, I will work for every coin I receive. There is no greater comfort than knowing one has truly earned all they have.

As said in the beginning, collection bores me, what I would love to be able to do is be so comfortable with myself, I can give it all away. No attachment to what I own, this is Freedom.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]