having takes

Enthusiasm. Who has it? Do you? Did you? I'll bet you probably did at one time.

Enthusiasm is wasted on the young. Those who have less means are likely to be the most enthusiastic about something. Enthusiasm for things tends to evaporate as we get older. Why is this?

I have the time and money to be really creative about something but I am not enthusiastic about anything enough to get started. God knows that I have projects in great need of my enthusiasm.

The key word there is have. If you did a spread sheet on the subjects that I have some interest in, guided by the books and magazines that I own, the list would be too long for a lifetime. Add in the objects you will find in my house and the work to be done on the house and yard and the list swells again. Throw in the demands placed on my time by family and work and the list is fatter still.

Of course it has not always been that way. Once upon a time when I had little I could muster enthusiasm at will. I could devote myself to my physical condition to the point where I could run twenty miles all at once, clicking them off at an easy eight minutes each. I could ride my motorcycle across the country, putting in two hundred miles in a day or one thousand miles in a day. I could play basketball for a couple of hours almost every day, I could read a whole book in a day, I could just go away on weekends and see something.

I can't do any of this anymore and I think the reason is because now, unlike then, I have. Having takes away the quality in your life and it doesn't give anything back except for the desire to have more.

I have to figure out how to get enthusiastic about getting rid of a lot of my stuff so I can live a little life in the time I have left.

Be careful about having.