This is a pretty easy list for me. The first two are related to my greatest passion — writing. The last one is a spiritual passion. But the time requirements that go along with teaching prevent me from putting the time into any of these that I would have if money was no object.

First and foremost, if I didn’t need the money, I’d clearly spend more time writing, and specifically writing the many novels I’ve conceptualized over the past 30 years. I finally did start the first novel over the summer, but I wasn’t able to get it finished by the time school started, so now I’m nickel and diming my time to get the last few chapters finished. It would be a dream to have unlimited time to work on those books.

The second job is something that I really enjoyed when I wrote for a couple of college newspapers, and that I did later for an independent website. I would love to regularly write movie reviews. I did that a bit in college, and then I did it years later for a site called The Trades. Sadly, that site was not able to sustain itself and has gone away, taking with it my best opportunity to fulfill that passion. Again, unlimited funds would afford me the opportunity to attend movie screenings and share my opinions. As an aside, one of the reasons I like writing about movies is that I tend to have a more common sense view about them than most of the reviewers you’ll see online. So many movie reviewers are disaffected, wannabe movie makers who never either had the chance or the talent to realize their movie making dreams. These people take out their frustrations by trashing movies they see as unworthy of the viewing public, and they glorify movies that are far too artistic for the average person to enjoy. I tend to split the middle in the way I see films.

The last of the three jobs is related to my spiritual side. I’ve always felt that the Lord had his hand on me and was calling me into deeper ministry, and perhaps even ordination. I’ve already pursued this to some extent, but balancing career, family and ministry is a challenge that often leaves the ministry side with far too little time. I would love to have hours to just study and absorb the things that would make me more effective as a minister — scripture, Greek, Latin, history and more.

Dreaming about these things is nice, and it brings a smile to my face to think that such a day could be in my future somewhere. But the reality is that all of these things still do mean something to me, so the challenge is finding a way to incorporate them in my life in the here and now without those unlimited funds. Sure, it’s a far greater challenge, but if I’m committed to working on those areas when the money is tight, I’ll be much more likely to follow through with them if and when more money ever does come my way.