I’ve read your blogs a few times, and I think they are excellent, keep it up!

Out of the many “quotable” lines you wrote, I was struck the most by this: “If you were not born into wealth, you can get it; just make sure that you do it for reasons that you later are going to be proud of.”

That’s the beauty of politics. It has created a system that allows people to escalate a socio-economical pyramid if they choose to do so. And s for the reasons you can be proud of, well, being rich here takes hard work, perseverance, street-smarts maybe, dedication, credit, funding, and what not, but unlike YOUR country and MY country (both in Latin America) it does not take “playing the game of deception” that everybody is so used to playing. C’mon, even if you fund a succesful and booming enterprise, you’d be faced with the need to “sell you integrity” to avoid facing a shutdown by corrupt policemen, agovernment agents, etc. Anyway, I HAVE deviated from your post.

Again, excellent reflection. I myself grew up OBSESSED with making riches for riches sake, and have not achieved them, nor have I achieved happiness. I do not have kids because I think I still cannot affor them, or provide enough so they won’t complain as I did to my parents, but is … just a neverending rat-race.

You mention contentment, and I have chosen to call it conformity, and it doing so, have become so uncomfortable, and unhappy.. and not-a-millionaire by $998,500 that it seems I chose thw wrong path. But reading your post, is valuable, I appreciate you sharing about your family with such a candid openness.

What you say is true about people who earn a lot. They often have very little time to spend with their children, because they spend more time taking care of their money instead of their kiddos. Discussing values is one of my favorite discussions. I even took a course my first semester last fall at the graduate college of social work here at the University of Houston called “Social Work values and ethics”.

I spend an enormous amount of time studying cultures and their values. For me though, where the line crosses is when and at what time is it appropriate to intercede between one’s values within one’s culture? The answer to that is a challege, but a good guide is the NASW code of ethics. Based on those guidelines, challenging social injustice is a requirement. Take for example female genital mutilation. In Africa it is culturally acceptable. Let’s say I’m dealing with African immigrants who recently had their daughter “fixed”. Well, should I have them prosecuted or not? Ahhh, lots of questioning on that one. And that’s just one example.