From childhood, I learned that not everything that glitters is gold.
I remember my boyhood experiences as a child playing by myself around a nearby creek. The gurgling of the water as it rushed over the rocks always filled my soul with a sense of peace. The sounds of the birds simply became an orchestra of a soundtrack beneath the creek sounds.
I was pulling rocks from the bottom of the creek to begin a fort, and I stirred up a flurry of gold glittering in the water. I thought, I’ve struck gold. This would solve those financial problems I heard my parents talking about.
I decided to collect as much as I could that day and bring it home to share with my folks.
I had seen in westerns the miners panning for gold, so I pedaled home quietly entered in the back door avoiding my mom, borrowing a pan and a shovel from the garage.
After coming back I panned for the little flakes compiling them in a repurposed tobacco sack now used for marbles.
After endless hours of the endeavor, darkness was coming on, so I collected my gains, my tools and got on my bike and pedaled home to beat the street lights from coming on.
When everything was put away, I proudly presented my day’s endeavors to my dad.
He opened the sack, looked inside and said, “Son, come over here.” He lifted me up upon his knee and said to me look inside this bag. I did thinking how proud I was of my efforts.
Beside the bag he held out his ring finger which held his wedding band and said, “Now, look at my ring. Does what you have in the bag look like what’s on my finger?”
I looked back and forth between the sack and his ring and I looked up at him and said,
“They are different. Why are they different?”
He smiled and said, “Because, son, all that glitters is not gold. What you have here is a bag of iron pyrite, often called ‘fool’s gold’.”
“So, it’s not worth anything?”, I asked.
“Well let’s think on that,” he said. “How long did you spend on gathering this bag?”
I told him all day. He asked me if I worked hard at it and I told him that I was plum tuckered out.
“Did you enjoy the time you did it?” he asked.
“I did,” I told him.
“Have you learned anything from the experience?” he inquired.
“Yes, I learned that sometimes you can spend all day trying to get the gold and come home empty-handed,” I said.
He said that is a good lesson, but another one was not to jump at every shiny thing in life.
“If you do, you may find out too late that shiny things are not what is best for you in your life,” he said.
Before he set me back down, he pulled the drawstring on the bag, handed it back to me.
“Son, thank you for what you tried to do for our family,” he said. “Your heart was in the right place. Just keep trying.
“Next time, you may just find a true treasure. Just learn a bit and maybe talk to me about it before jumping feet first into it,” he counseled. “Also, I would get your mom’s skillet washed and put back before she realizes you were using it.”
I smiled and climbed off his knee.
“Son, why don’t you put that bag on your bedpost? I think when you see it, it will remind you that bright and shiny isn’t always what’s best for us,” he said.
“Sure Pa,” I said.
Not too long ago, I was going through some boxes in my attic, and ran across that white bag of fool’s gold, I was reminded the adventure of that day was such a great memory. I could almost hear the creek again emanating from the iron pyrite in my hand.
That childhood lesson has tempered my choices throughout my life. I found those shiny things my father was talking about are more than just gold. They could be a beautiful girl, a flashy car, a better job, a big house or every imaginable toy an adult might want.
While, sometimes I have weakened being drawn for a time to shiny things, I have managed to step back from the precipice before jumping feet first without a full review of what I was about to swallow hook, line and sinker.
Are you jumping for every shiny thing that comes your way? Maybe, it’s time to look more deeply into your personal bag of fool’s gold before you buy that next thing that glitters in front of you.
