I prefer freedom

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom. ~E. B. White

I like money; I make it welcome in my life. I do all those things metaphysicians tell us to do when manifesting wealth: I keep my wallet tidy; I smile when I pay my bills; I have a mindset of abundance rather than lack. But I value freedom more. I value my personal freedom---freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom from soul-crushing encumbrances---more than anything else, more than all the tea in China. 

I lead an unencumbered life. I am not weighed down by debt, by other people's expectations of me, by relationships that require more than I have to give. Yet every so often I find myself spread too thin, too engulfed in obligations, too stuck. Last weekend caught me off guard. Waves of discontent engulfed me and I had to pause to examine why. I am an instructor in a wonderful adult education program and I love the curriculum, I love the students, and I love the other instructors. But what I love more than anything else in the world is freedom to come and go as I please, freedom to go through life with no strings attached. Those are difficult objectives to achieve if I'm bound by other people's expectations of me. I realized last weekend that it may be time to reevaluate my commitment to this gig that offers me a chance to put in one weekend a month for four months in the fall and winter. The compensation is fair and it always comes in handy. 

One of the greatest sources of unhappiness is the feeling of being stuck. ~Dr. Robert Anthony, Doing What You Love, Loving What You Do

But for this Sagittarius who has been unabashedly self-employed for decades, one who has known lean and prosperous times, I agree with E. B. White: I prefer freedom. And while it's not necessarily an all-or-nothing proposition, at my age, I ain't wasting time chasing anything but my heart's desire.