The present vs the future

Luke 6:24 What sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now. (NLT)

I've always read this verse as a Blessed be the poor kind of thing, but the word "now" was brought to my attention, and a whole new meaning came about. As in, do not succumb to chasing material wealth/riches in this life, because although they may bring comfort to you now, you still have the rest of your life - or rather, the eternal life - to think about.

And this made me stop to think... because I've always been a now kind of person, and never, ever, a future kind of person. Every job I've had, everything I've done, was for me to be happy now. With the possible exception of the putting-my-bro-thru-school thing, but even then, while that is not a me-being-happy-now thing, it also has nothing to do with the future, and more to do with a brother-sister thing. Right.

It really makes me wonder whether it's inborn, or a learned behaviour, or what. Where does my need to be happy now come from? Straight off the bat, I'd say from my crap days at that idiot girls' high school, when I decided that being happy trumped being sad. Is that true? If so, then my high school days have ruined me even more than I thought.

In any case, it's time to invest the now for the future. My first instinct, is to say that I can't do very much with this information, seeing as I am broke and in a whole lot of debt, but who says the investment has to be monetary? Right, God? :D Hee hee. I have no clue what I could possibly invest in, but at least now that I have this seed of a thought, perhaps it might be ingrained in me and I can do something with it later. (My second instinct is invest in relationships, but I have no relationships... or well, the ones that I do have, I already invest in... does this mean, more will come?!!)

It's a little sad that I've "wasted" ten, twelve years of my life to get to this point. But I guess I have to walk the path that I walk... and this conclusion thingy might have just passed me by - as a lot of things do - had I not walked this particular path... Bah. But the point of it all is not to regret, right, so time to move forward and actually do something with this investing thing.

Food for thought. God bless.