(this is a repost from my Y360 blog which is now gone)…

Granpa George said:
“There’s plenty of money out there
They print more everyday
But this ticket…
… there’s only five of them
In the whole wide world…
…and that’s all there’s going to be.
Only a dummy would give this up
For something as common as money.
Are you a dummy?”

Grandpa George is one of the characters from the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and he was telling his grandchild Charlie about not giving up the ticket for the money even though the whole family needed it.

As I was watching the movie and it came to this part, I was thinking that the “ticket” can also represent many things in our lives, it could be our principle, faith, hope, family (husband, wife, children, parents, sisters, brothers), our happiness, health.

Yes we need the money and who doesn’t, we need it to have food to eat, send kids to school, pay our bills, etc. But there are a lot of “other” things in our lives which are more important to us than money.

Have we considered giving ourselves more time to rest and relax?

Have we considered giving more time to our children to really see what they want and need right now?

How about our husband or wife, have we considered giving them more of our time to show them we love them and appreciate what they are doing to the family?

How about our parents and sisters and brothers, have we given them the time they need so that we can listen to them?

There are a lot of other things… have we compromised our faith?

Everytime we give more time to work for the money, one of these things that  are important to us suffers.
Money can never make us or the people around us really really happy .

Money can never fulfill all of our needs.

Money can never satisfy all of our desires.

It is better to be thankful that we have what we got today for it is God’s blessing to us. It is not wrong to want better things, to work hard so that we can give ourselves and our loved ones what they need and want, but let us not forget also that sometimes when working “too hard” for the “money”, when wanting too much of it will make us losers.

Just because you can have everything that this world can offer, doesn’t make you a better person. Material possessions is not the measurement of one’s character.

Just because you have plenty of money, doesn’t make you a better person, it is not the measurement of one’s character.

How would we want people to remember us when we’re gone? How would we want our children to remember us as a parent? How would we want our husband/wife to remember us as their partner? How would we want God to see us as a person? There are  so many hows?… and only we can answer them, it’s not yet too late, as long as we are living we can always change for the better.

As grandpa George said: “Only a dummy would give this up, for something as common as money.”

Yes money is common, and just like Charlie’s reply to him, when he was asked if he was a dummy… “no sir!”….

that is my reply too, definitely NO SIR!

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. ~ Ecclesiastes 5:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. ~ 1 Timothy 6:10