This is a photo I took last week in the most uncomfortable waiting room I've sat in. I wanted it for this newsletter, and for my future self. As soon as I snapped it, someone else rang the doorbell and was let in to wait next to me. As I sat with this stranger on one side and my backpack on the other, most of me wanted to throw up. But another part was able to stay objective about the task at hand.

As I was called back into the office, I pulled out a small assortment of jewelry my wife and I pulled together the week prior. Ranging from pendants and a couple modest rings, to the gold chain I got on my 16th birthday. There were also a few of the nice pieces she’s received as gifts over the years. They’ve come out a few times for galas or weddings, but more or less remain in their boxes (which was nice, because that resolved some of the humiliation of the ziplock bag containing the rest.)

The gold pieces go onto a black felt pad where he picks up each one, analyzes the metal with his electrical sensor. Checks it with his magnifying lens. Wipes the tarnish off and checks again. A few pieces end up being worthless, which was to be expected. Sadly it was a few of the heavier pieces I had weighed on the kitchen scale before hand when making my estimate on how much this venture was going to be worth. When it was all said and done, I had $2k in value—less than I had been hoping for. I left with a check, as well as the nice necklaces in the boxes (Turns out, they weren't going to fetch an amount that made parting with them feel right.)

This is the point where where the story can split. It can become about regret and self-pity, or about purpose and intention. Slipping into the former is easy, because that's been my natural disposition in life. Learning how to re-write the story using the later is new territory, and the stuff I want to explore in earnest. So this isn't a feel bad for me story. This is a story about what it looks like to push all the chips in.

The entirety of our current financial circumstances are heavily compounded, including years of build up and let down. There are so many side narratives that may or may not get told here. But right now there's no way of denying we are in a huge hole, and I'm working on how to create our way out of it.

As has been the case on Mondays recently, my wife and I sat with our coffee out back by the pool listening to the birds. She's the reason I keep mixing "I" and "we" as I write from the cuff again. It's the start of a new week, always feeling heavier and scarier than we'd like it to, barreling down once more, ready or not.

Today, I brought a week's worth of new conversations, reading, meditations, and curiosity. Of all the people who know how little I have things figured out, she's got the front row seat. Season ticket holder, back stage pass, etc. But as I've been working on turning a corner, I think sometimes when I check behind me, she's trying to stay close. It's definitely not that I know more, but maybe just that the direction I'm going feels right?

I've had to re-wire a lot of my thinking over the past few years. One of the recent ways I've done that is to change how I think about money. For most of my career it has held a power over me that's led to nothing but disappointment. It's the destination and the whole reason we do what we do, and so we measure it and fret over it and derive so much of our daily purpose from it. (if you're new, I wrote an earlier post about it)

The absence of money be a contributor, but now I think of it more like tokens in the game of life. I grew up in the "you can't take it with you" culture consistent with Western Christianity. Which is well intentioned, but the capitalist irony has created a backlash in me as a result (see Dave Ramsey culture, the laughable wealth gap, and billionaire worship as evidence).

As I walked out of that private jewelers office with a check in hand for $2k (that I had really hoped was going to be 3x that), it was no longer money to me. These are tokens that are keeping us in the game to get through this level. We'll find more. We'll dig them up when we have to. Because we're playing the stage where there’s a lot of ground to cover and it is all about momentum and forward motion and finding a flow state. And I'd like to think that's also where clarity and focus is rewarded with tiny miracles along the way.

This is definitely not how either of us intended for it to go. But over the past 20, 30, 40 years - we accumulated these small tokens and symbols that have resided in darkness and obscurity. Now, at a crucial stage in the game, we've traded them for tokens that will keep us alive until we find the next batch. After all, we can't take ‘em with us.

-Justin