By Allen Bolen, Staff Writer
It is said that King Solomon’s wealth, estimated at $2 trillion in today’s dollars, is the greatest fortune the world has ever seen. Yet he died in a state of unhappiness, claiming that “all is vanity.”
I mostly agree with Solomon. Most of the pleasures that money can buy, in the end, will fail to satisfy.
With this thought, I’m reminded of a story I once heard of a dying man who gave advice to his young pupil. He said: “During my lifetime, I made $20 million. And as near as I can tell, I spent $12 million of it hunting and fishing.” He paused, then continued with a regretful tone. “And the rest of it, I just wasted.”
But I am also a believer that money can sometimes buy happiness. After all, bowhunting is happiness, and money can buy bowhunts.
In fact, bowhunting for me is foundational to contextualizing money’s real value. For example, my wife once informed me that she wanted to buy a new kitchen appliance that would cost $900. I sat pondering the value of a dishwasher for several moments before shaking my head and replying, “Do you realize that’s one-third the cost of a black bear hunt?”
I wasn’t born into money. My father was a house painter. But my love of bowhunting has driven me to self-made financial success. In my mind, earning money is just another part of the hunt. Sometimes it feels like glassing for coues deer in the 110-degree desert. Admittedly, that’s not my favorite thing to do, but how else does the Coues deer get killed? Grinding it out at work is just as essential to the Coues deer’s demise; without it, my truck doesn’t even get to Arizona.
While bowhunting has motivated me to chase that dollar, it has also wrung-out my savings. And that’s been a conscious decision.
I’ll never forget the lesson I learned while selling mountain goat hunts at my SCI booth. A nice gentleman in his late 70’s hobbled up to the counter and politely inquired about my hunts. He told me he had just retired and sold his business. He explained that he planned to do a lot of hunting, and that mountain goat was high on his list. With sadness, I explained to him that the hunt was likely beyond his physical capacity. Since that day, I have not hesitated to hunt sheep while in my forties–even when I can’t afford it.
I remember a time when I faced some financial trouble; I thought, What if I go bankrupt? In response to this terrifying question, a consoling thought entered my mind. They can’t take away my stone sheep, nor the memory of my pounding heart when I first laid hands on his horns. That will always be mine, no matter what happens.
