There was once a king who wants to expand his kingdom so badly. And he focused his attention to his neighboring kingdoms. So, he summoned his greatest generals to seek advice. He sent his son to other places to pick up war strategies and other valuable information. He sent scouts to the nearby kingdoms to study their strengths and weaknesses.
After a few years, he was able to devise a perfect plan. But in order to execute the plan, he has to find the right place to wage the war, he has to have the right army size composed of skillful and courageous warriors, he has to have the right weapons & horses and the weather has to be ideal.
He wasted no time in building his army - recruiting and training warriors. He spent a fortune in manufacturing the weapons and breeding the best horses. He sent some of his men to study the weather to be able to predict a favorable time to wage war.
After some time, his men can predict the weather just fine. But he found out that his army shrunk in numbers. Some of his trained warriors died or unfit for combat. He invested again in training additional warriors to replace the ones he'd lost. He also provided more privileges to his warriors making sure that they will be healthier & stronger for battle.
He is so obsessed with his plan that he failed to take good care of his own kingdom. He has not improved the infrastructure and failed to listen to the farmers' concerns about pests, poor road conditions and criminals preying on them.
After a few more months, people in his kingdom are getting sick. It must have something to do with the pests that the farmers were complaining about. Food is also scarce due to low harvest output. The animals too are dying. But the great king doesn't see these. He is so focused on his war and he believes that taking his eye away from it will be detrimental to his victory.
Until the sickness is so widespread in his kingdom that it has affected even his own army and trusted people. He also doesn't have much wealth left due to incessant spending on his "war." He doesn't know what to do!
I am going to stop the story here. I will let you come up with your own version of how it ends. Why? Aside from making this blog longer, I believe that we can already pick up very important messages at this point.
Analysis Paralysis. It is good to plan before embarking on an important task. But too much planning also provides disadvantages. Sometimes we want to be too careful that the plan actually never gets carried out.
"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned." ~ Peter Marshall
Taking care of our kingdom. What is our kingdom? It could be our family, our relationship with God, or our own body. Sometimes there are things that take us away from our kingdom. Sometimes we spend so much time accumulating wealth or trying to accumulate wealth to the point that we are neglecting our loved ones and our physical wellness which, I would say, are our true wealth.
"The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships." ~ Anthony Robbins
We can never be happy if we are moving away from the very source of our being. We have to strengthen our core, our own kingdom, our own wealth. And we can face anything, anytime with more power and happiness.
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." ~ Matthew 6:33
Are you taking care of your true wealth?
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