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Great post. I’m also in the boat you talk about. Of course, for myself I can’t just say it was poor money management… it was poor life management. But it is good to know that I can use those mistakes and turn my failures into successes today.

And yup… those were my best money role models as well.

[...] Building Success from the Ashes of Failure [...]

The Artist

One evening there came into the soul of Auguste Rodin the desire to fashion an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment. So he went forth into the world to look for bronze, for he could only think in bronze.

But, alas, all the bronze of the world had disappeared. No where in the whole world was there any bronze to be found – save only the bronze of the image called The Sorrow that endureth for Ever.

Now this very image Rodin had himself, with his own hands, fashioned, and he had set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of the dead thing he had most loved he had set this image of his own fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that dieth not, and a symbol of the sorrow of a man that endureth for ever. And in the whole of the world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this image.

And Rodin took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace, and gave it to the fire.

So it was that out of the bronze of the image of The Sorrow that endureth for Ever, Auguste Rodin fashioned an image of The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment.

I share a history similar to yours, although my financial indiscretions were tied to a failed marriage. Now, I have no debt (other than my mortgage) and save a considerable amount for retirement and my son’s education. I also have cut my work week down to 32 hours.

It is absolutely amazing how much happier I am now that I have escaped the bonds of materialism. Getting out of the failed marriage and surrounding myself with people that care about me for who I am and not what I am/have has been key. Being rich is really not about money at all. And I have gotten that way slowly…