Queen of Everything 2: The Steward

To better understand this post you need to read the first one here.

I've created nine characters overseeing nine different areas of my life. We are all mind, body and soul. There are two mind characters, two body characters and five soul characters. Does that surprise you that I discovered that the soul or at least my soul, needed more characters than the mind and body put together? Of course you are free to disagree. I have no issues with you being wrong.

Let's focus on the mind characters first because the mind and body characters set the foundation for the soul characters. At least in this life. i'm not expert on the next one. I'm not an expert on this one either but at least I can pretend I am.

Today it is the Steward. I have also given these characters their own symbols and colors for ease in organizers and bullet journals.

Category: Mind

Symbol: The dollar sign

Color: Dark blue

Word: Responsibility

From the moment we’re born the need to be housed and fed takes precedence over everything else. Sure our parents wrap their arms around us, but they make sure we’re clothed, have a place to sleep and are nourished. At least they're supposed to. Churches discovered that preaching the gospel to the poor does little good if they have no roofs over their head or food to eat. It's hard to be thinking about God when your stomach is growling and you're being rained on.

It is the first law of love. Feed, shelter and clothe. Jesus said this over and over again. And for the non-religious, it is still the first law of love. No matter what you believe, the body needs to be taken care of before the soul.

And so the first law of love to ourselves and those we love is to make sure we are physically taken care of.

In times of old, it was the steward that took care of the properties of the king or the lord. He made sure the work was done, the bills were paid, and there was food on the table.

The steward makes you go to work and earn the money to provide a home for you. If your job is one that you only do for the money, then it’s the steward that does the work. If you’re lucky enough to love your work, the steward is the one that gets you through the parts of your job that you don’t like. The steward either does the work or hires and oversees others to do the work. The steward pays the bills, fills out the paperwork, does the taxes, handles the insurance, and tells the other parts of you that you don’t need another pair of shoes or another book, or one more gizmo, doohickey or thingamabob. The steward makes sure that your driver’s license is up to date, that you’re not overdrawn at the bank, and puts money into savings accounts and investments. The steward gets you out of bed in the morning when you really want to just roll over and go back to sleep. It’s the steward that hands you the fun money for the evening, chastises you for that spending spree that you did in spite of knowing you couldn’t afford it, reminds you that speeding could lead to a ticket, pays the stupid speeding ticket, and looks for alternative or additional sources of income.

It’s the steward that takes the car to the mechanic, that calls the landlord or the serviceman to make repairs in the home, and lends or gives money to adult children – and then reminds the children that they owe money back. And reminds them and reminds them and reminds them because they want the children to be good stewards of money.

The steward says no a lot. And the steward isn’t always fun. But the steward makes it possible to do all the other things that we like to do. It’s the steward that funds the hobbies, the amusements, the clothes, and the luxuries as well as the necessities. When the steward doesn’t do the job, then nothing else works. Disaster hits. The electricity gets turned off, the landlord evicts you and you end up in a cardboard box behind a restaurant fighting with the rats over the leftovers. Or if you're lucky some noble friend allows you to sleep on their couch for awhile until they can't stand you anymore.

Goals placed under the stewards responsibility could be things like:

Finding a new job or getting a raise or promotion

Saving a certain amount of money

Getting out of debt or reducing it

Making out a will

Starting a business

Buying or selling a house

Making investments

Getting taxes done on time

Applying for a mortgage or school loan

Obtaining a needed newer vehicle

Basically anything to do with money or paperwork. For instance, one of my goals this year is to get a passport. I put this under the responsibility of the steward because it involves money and paperwork – and although I want a passport, I don’t really want to actually go through the motions of getting one.

Look, if it’s fun – then it’s probably not the steward’s responsibility. If it’s not fun – you give that to the steward.

And if you are not financially responsible for providing for yourself, it’s the steward that makes you go to school, show up for classes you don’t want to be at, and makes you do your work. So you can fight against your steward, and spend the money the steward says you don't have, and sleep in instead of getting up for work, and then have to deal with the consequences of that, or you can work with the steward even if it means gritting your teeth and doing that job you don't like, because a job you don't like is still better than sleeping out in the rain.