It's a Jungle Out There

One of the challenges of being alone in the mature years of life is just having to do everything yourself.  In a typical week, I may have to mow 2 acres, wash down the porch (living in the country is dusty!), pay the bills, make some investment decisions, deal with a backed up washing machine, decide which set of tires to purchase, and clean up after the dogs.  It's just such a PRIVILEGE to have the blessings that require all this 'doing' and 'deciding.'  But the responsibility can be daunting sometimes.  Who among us knows what to do with an investment?  I sure don't!  So, there is another decison...who will I trust with that?  Fortunately I now have a wonderful person who does that for me.  But the first one lost a lot of my money.  (BTW, your church is not necessarily the best place to find such advisors.)  Of course, I've drained a LOT of it since I divorced.  But I don't care what is going on in the world, or in my budget for that matter....every month I 'buy.'

I have gentlemen friends who are special to me and I to them...but we don't talk finance much in our freindships, so I can't share much of my really big decisions with them.  But I really find myself ENVYING men!  For some reason, it just seems that all these things come naturally to a man.  I guess that's why we let them do it...or expect them to. 

Besides love, this is one of the reasons some of us still want men in our lives.  They do such AWESOME things...like manage stuff.  How handsome and appealing they look when shouldering such responsibilities.  I like that in a man.  I find it charming and so smart.

Recently, when a man bought a painting of mine, he, of course, asked "How much?"  In spite of the dedicated and tireless attention I gave to painting and framing his requested work of art, I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "Do you know how to fix a tricky doorknob?"  But the starving artist in me knows that I can't make ends meet by bartering my skills for someone else's.  

Bartering for things looks like a good deal at first and I've done it some here in the small town where I live.  But it just keeps one in the same spot all the time, like walking to the bank on a treadmill.  A lady doesn't 'get ahead' financially that way.  Better to take money for my work and still hope someone will fix the door knob for free...just because the're my friend..which is exactly what happened...so I'm a few dollars better off for not bartering. 

I never really looked at life this way until the handsome man purchased my painting and ask how much it was.  I wonder how much of life we have bartered away, marching in place, rather than moving ahead? 

• Maybe because we had no money and took the quick option
• Maybe because we were unaware of our true value
• Maybe because the person offering the barter was more persuasive
• Maybe because it was a good deal and we we actually came out ahead
• Maybe, just maybe, it is sometimes an 'everybody' wins thing
• BUT mostly for me, I come out a loser.

I'm worth every penny I ask for a painting (and I'm not experienced enough to ask a lot yet).  And trading the beauty of an image conveyed from the creative creavices in my brain through the wrist and hand and onto the brush touching paper....well...well, it just is not the same value as the hand and head that know that the doorknob just needs some WD-40 squirted around!  What a loss that might have been.  Of course a true gentleman would reject my offer to make such an exchange...and he is a gentleman.

The thought of bartering brings me to recall some important Bible lessons...the name Esau ring a bell to you?  Or maybe the clink-chink of 30 pieces of gold?  Powerful choices made centuries ago bringing us tough histories of middle-Eastern horrors even today.  And of course the blessing of a Savior through the bartering mistake of another. 

Most things and experiences and choices are priceless.  Were it not for need or greed, bartering would never have been invented.  The new world would never have been explored.  Characters never developed into the identification of values.  Fairness never defined.

But, it's a jungle out there...always a hairy armed mama's boy out to get you at the tire shop.  Always somebody opening his billfold to expose a few enticingly fresh hundred dollar bills to exchange for something priceless but unreedeemable from you.

Greed and need...important distinctions to make when walking in the jungle.  Don't trade your shirt on a dark, rainy day...the sun will come out again.