IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

“I want my two dollars,” I said mockingly in reference to the paper boy in the movie Better Off Dead as Andy and I stood up from the blackjack table. I had been winning for the better part of the afternoon and as I walked through the casino, I was excited about having won ninety-eight dollars. But I wanted more. I wanted triple digits. There was something magical about winning a hundred dollars that I knew would make for a better story.

We walked around the casino for a while and monitored some of the games that were being played. When Andy sat down at another table to play a few more hands, I couldn’t resist the temptation to add to my winnings. I sat down across from him and was pretty confident as I placed my first bet. Within minutes, I lost forty-eight dollars in successive hands. My luck had run out. So I stood up from the table and walked out of the casino with fifty dollars.

Logic dictates that I am supposed to want those two dollars when I gamble. It is part of the allure. It is scintillating. It’s electric! String a couple of good hands together and walk away with a fistful of dollars. Guess wrong and walk away empty handed.

To be honest, though, I was content just to walk away a winner. I usually lose. Expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised. Once I was up, I was playing with the casino’s money so the fear of losing was removed from the game. It made me more brazen in my attempts to take chances and last week it paid off. I went home content with the outcome of my day.

I thought about how I was feeling when I drove home. I reflected on the word “content” and thought about it in the context of my own existence. I thought about the choices I have made and how those decisions have affected subsequent stages of my life. I firmly believe that I have the right to choose what I want to do each and every day, but do I have the right to choose the consequences?

As the miles passed, I came to the conclusion that life is just a series of blind experiments with unknown repercussions. For each decision, there is an equal and resulting conclusion. The stakes are higher than at the poker table because more than money is being wagered; quality of life is the collateral for the choices I make. And with each passing year, the responsibility for my actions involves more and more people. With so much at stake, how could I ever be content with my life?

When I was in college, I read that Socrates had said that, “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” At the time, I vehemently disagreed. I chalked Socrates’ logic up to old world thinking from a man who had lived in a primitive time. Greece was light years behind our society. Socrates could never have fathomed the modern world and therefore, his words became antiquated. I knew better. My quest was about to begin. Vast wealth and luxury was the mountain that stood between me and contentment.

It is wise to be young and foolish at some point in our lives. Natural consequences have always had a way of reminding me that I could choose one of two paths at every crossroad. And regardless of the trail I took, I would face great joy and my fair share of adversity somewhere along the journey. With each life lesson that was doled out, I learned to appreciate the people, places and possessions I had in my life. There was a constant commonality with every learning experience; luxury came at a devastating price while natural wealth came with conditions of understanding.

The simple truth is that I should always chase those two dollars in every aspect of my life and as I live and learn, I should be willing to understand that the goal is constantly changing. The two dollars I am chasing now is not the financial fortune I chased in my younger days. My days are spent reveling in precious moments with my wife and children, guitar lessons, writing, shared experiences with good friends and a continued crusade to create a better community. I find my two dollars in the ripple of a pond, a meteor shower on a clear moonlit night, holding the hands of my children and by dancing with my wife under the stars at second base.

Whether I call it my two dollars or I call it wisdom, I am content with the direction of my life. Socrates was right after all because at the end of my individual rainbow, I found a pot full of natural wealth and it continues to runneth over with peace and personal prosperity.

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