My 18 year old daughter found this song that I highly recommend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwNW_vk1pWk&channel=vlogbrothers
In it's humorous way, it reminds me of how we can look at the same thing from two ways - from what's missing or bad about it or from the good impact it has. How we often neglect the latter.
Today I celebrate my own dad's golden qualities: self-restraint, thinking things through, and putting away a sizable amount of money on a school teachers salary while supporting a wife and four children.
I remember one meal time after his participation in or leadership of a faculty meeting. (He was the head of the business dept at a community college for a number of years.) "People wanted to know what I feel." Insert here a disgusted scowl and a reddened face. "It doesn't matter what I feel. We have to think about these things. Our feelings don't matter."
The good side of this was that our impulses to buy more things, own a bigger house, spend more money on vacation were rarely considered for long before a firm, "No." Yet they had money for a college education for any child who desired that.
Children of the depression, my mom and dad were always worried that there wouldn't be enough money at the end. My mom lived seven years after dad died and acted like a ten-year-old with a hundred dollar bill in the candy store. Yet, much remained afterwards. I was surprised at how large my inheritance was.
So today I'm thankful for their thrift, my dad's hard work both at the college and at our home and garden and his propensity to save.
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