I was originally going to write a different post today, but being prompted by a conversation I overheard a few days ago, I decided to share this story with you instead.

I had a conversation with a fellow hotel guest in the hot tub about eating out and family lifestyle and the likes when a third man entered the health club area and starting chatting with his friend and me. It turned out that the guy I was talking to, let’s call him John for now, was complaining about getting bad sleep after eating a big meal at a diner while on the road.

So, naturally, his buddy asks him what he has eaten that night. John answers that he had a big steak with baked potato and an appetizer. The friend then asks him if he wants a couple of beers from the store nearby.

John says he had already had 3 beer with his dinner, but a couple more wouldn’t hurt. And here my friends is where the story grabbed my attention. John says that they have this great new medicine out that let’s you eat lots of junk food, have several beers and with only one pill you still sleep like a baby without any indigestion or heartburn.

He forgot to mention the fact that he is about 60 pounds overweight and this diet simlpy cannot be good for you in the long run.

But wait, we are not done with the story yet, it is getting even more obscure. So the other guy, a bit older and skinny but complaining about his ailments also, adds the following comment: Yeah I know, my wife and I are on this drug that let’s you eat what you want and not even gain weight and it is even without a prescription.

Now people, let’s be honest here for just a second: Is this a disturbing situation or what? Neither of these guys are healthy or attempting to be by changing their bad habits and getting better nutrition. But they both are swearing by prescription drugs that will magically cure all bad and let them do whatever they please.

Well, I have news for you ! It doesn’t work like that. The phrase “Garbage in, garbage out” comes to mind although it is usally used for computer data, it applies to humans as well. If you are mistreating your body with junk food and lack of exercise then non pill in the world will help you long term.

I am not opposed to modern medicine and while I do accept that drugs may be helpful for treating certain ailments until we can accept a firm belief of health and wellbeing to replace outside substances to keep us well, this story makes a wonderful point.

You cannot change anything in your life or improve the outcome of any situation no matter what it is by putting a band aid on the problem. You will always just be covering up a symptom rather than treating the root cause of your issue.

Applying this to the topic of your financial situation it would look something like this: if you are finding yourself in a spot where you are always short of money to pay your bills or to do what you would like to do then it is not good enough to get another credit card, max it out and not have a plan to get out of the bad symptoms you are experiencing with money or the lack of it.

Instead, you have to try and go to the root of the issue and either find legitimate ways to make more money than you spend or find a way to spend within the budget you do have. I knwo that the second solution is not very exciting or gratifying, therefore I propose to look at the beliefs you hold about money and then change them to get a different outcome and better symptoms.

See you at the top…

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