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July 29, 2009
Oh, For the Love of...Money
Writing about money is considered by some to almost be sacrosanct or sacrilegious, especially when the slant of the writing is more a diatribe about the damage money does to us as individuals, as people, as humans. Money is like food: we need a lot less of it than our mind wants us to believe.
But, try to tell that to someone whose main focus is money and the accumulation of as much of it as possible and at almost any extent and watch out, because it ain't going to be pretty. After all, you're stepping on hallowed ground when you dare broach the subject that we, as individuals, just don't need all the money that we're led to believe we simply cannot do without.
I'm continually reminded of my Dad asking me over the years about how much money I make and where it (continues) to 'go'. What is meant by his gentle inquiry is a probing as to where do I spend my money; after all, I'm making a fair bit more than he and my mother use as they enter their 18th year of retirement, and which is a seemingly comfortable retirement lifestyle at that.
My Dad has a point, but I'll use it in a different way here.
He and my mother bought the house they still live in, when they were in their mid and early 40's. They paid it off during the next 10 years whilst concurrently raising four adolescents and then active teenagers in that house. Not a small feat to do, especially near the latter part of the 20th century when seasoned salaries, like my father's income, were nowhere near what most of today's university graduates are paid for work when they're fresh out of school.
Anyway, I'm writing this article to more so share my thoughts and insights on the entire 'need' for money, and how all encompassing it is to us, as we mostly do our darnedest to convince ourselves that we don't have enough of it, ever, and then spend the rest of our time worrying about how to 'make more'. And, if that's not enough of a proverbial hamster wheel to be running around on as we actually believe it's getting us somewhere different around the cage: we then worry that we will most likely lose what accumulated riches we've made and scurry about wondering how we're to hang onto what we've worked so hard to scrounge around and gather. It's not a very pretty picture that we paint during our days here, is it?
About a year and a half ago I had an insight, once again when I was in the shower, as water flowing over this carcass has that type of therapeutic effect on me at times, that money truly is something that isn't needed in great quantities. At the time I wasn't sure what the thought that went through my head and mind meant. All I knew what that I felt a truly great sense of relief after the insight, without yet knowing the full impact and intent of it.
Over the next few months I realized many things about that evening under the falling water when another layer of mental dust and imaginary dirt was washed from my mind. I understood that we humans spent an extraordinary and inordinately exceptional amount of time worrying about money, and about not ever seemingly having enough of it.
Turn on any television and flip through the channels and you'll no doubt find a movie about someone who's stolen money, won money, hidden money, killed someone for money, lost money, needed money, laundered money, or held someone's kid or husband or wife for ransom money, etceteras.
Or you'll find a program on one of the channels that has to do with getting a better job, earning more money, making millions on the Internet, renovating your house so you can sell it for more, improving your car so it has a better resale value, 'saving money' by buying that furniture/clothes/house/object that's on sale, saving for retirement, investing money wisely, making your money work for you in your life, being frugal, eating on the cheap, stretching your dollar.
Oh, it's insane! The list goes on and on and on. Money, money, money.
Just how much money do we need? Again, I'll state that we 'need' a lot less than most of us have. Now don't get me wrong as I'm not saying that money is useless. I'm not, and it's not. It does have a purpose. But, what I'm working hard to impart here is the simple fact that each person in this world only needs to rely upon the means to bring enough money into their life to allow the body to be comfortable, and the body of those under their care. Simple as that.
Now where it gets all wacky is what each of us defines as comfortable. Some people aren't comfortable without having the latest gourmet cat food for their beloved Fluffy. On the other end, some people, unfortunately, would be most comfortable having any can of cat food to eat as it probably is more than they've had to eat in several days. That's the simple truth of the matter in this whacked out imbalanced world we live in.
Some people just have to have that million dollar watch on their wrist to stave off the pangs of ordinariness the rest of us deal with each day, whilst in some countries one can watch millions die from lack of basic human needs due to a lack of local currency to use to obtain these most basic of needs. So, again, there is an extraordinary imbalance that is part of the human condition and yet money is still not seen as the solution to that issue.
If you're still one of us who lives to survive, think about how much time you spend during your days worrying about money. Not having enough of it probably consumes most of your thoughts. But, think about just how much you absolutely need.
Of course we all need the basics. Food, shelter, fluids, clothes. But, even still, how much of that is needed? How much of a residence is needed to live comfortably in? How many things in that abode you live in do you really need? How much does your family need to survive? When you distill it down for the absolute vast majority of us there really isn't a lot that each of us need to exist, happily, as humans.
Provide for our basic needs, give us the freedom that we all deserve, leave us to our own unharming desires, and we're pretty happy beings.
But, then mix in a little worry to the recipe. All goes haywire in a heartbeat.
A few months ago I was watching Eckhart Tolle being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and they were discussing relevant 'spiritual' topics with folks who called in through Internet telephony. One of the persons they spoke with was a young man who stated that he wanted to be spiritual and he worked very hard at it, but he still knew that he had bills to pay and things to buy for his university schooling and so forth and that he worried about how he was going to be able to afford and tend to these additional needs in his life allthewhile being spiritual.
Mr. Tolle gave a very cogent response wherein he stated that this young man did have to tend to these needs in his life, but he didn't have to worry about them.
Worry.
The innocent, innocuous, invisible killer.
The predominant majority of us have all the money we need - although we cannot be paid to be convinced that we do - but no one says that we have to worry about not having enough. We do that to ourselves.
Am I in some sort of ivory tower because I have my needs met, and those of my sons, and don't worry about making money? Am I in a prestigious position because I'm not living off of food stamps? Am I a person who can be asked about 'how can I live on my meager income', because I'm not making $1.5 million a year?
All of these are valid and relevant questions. But none of them are useful to the topic of money, and how much is needed, or not.
About 20 years ago I was told by this woman I worked with that while she was on a tour of a very blighted and beaten up neighborhood here in the big city she saw absolutely deplorable conditions of living during the tour, for both many people and many families in the barrio. She couldn't believe that people actually had to endure such abject spartan conditions day after day. She made a comment to the tour guide that 'it must be hard for these people living here' and the tour guide looked at her and immediately responded with the rhetorical question "What makes you think that they're not happy?"
This is what I'm talking about.
Money can buy comfort. But it can't buy happiness.
Money is not the reason we are placed here on this physical plane. Life is not about how much we can accumulate while we're here. It simply isn't.
So what else is this insight about? Well, it's about a realization that after the understanding is fully comprehended about how much time we spend in fear over how much money we don't have and how afraid we are of losing what we do have, that the overall sense of relief and alternate life focus is immense.
There is so much more to existence than surviving as comfortably and as long as we can. And a life well spent does not mean to live your life spending.
Take a moment to imagine that you are fortunate enough to gracefully ripen to a very old age in life and that you now are that age. You are relatively healthy, for your age, and you are very near death's door as you are, after all, in the advanced end stage of life.
Are you going to spend your remaining days struggling to get more money, even if your grandchildren will benefit from their inheritance from you? Are you going to worry that you have to make more to 'ensure you have enough' till you die? Is it even going to be a consideration? Or are you going to, hopefully, wake up enough to see how absolutely ignorantly stupid you were to spend so much of your younger years worrying about accumulating as many pieces of inked, printed small pieces of paper as you were able to get within your tight little fisted hands or under your financial control in some fashion?
I hope for your sake, now, that you're one of the smart ones who sees their way through the hamster wheel you might be running around in right now, while there's still time, and then do what you can to get off of it as fast as you can and find a whole new world outside that tiny, enclosed, limited environment with money at its center and that you can't take with you to the other side of this life.
So, am I espousing that we all need to be ascetics or diligently work at asceticism? No. Not by a long shot. What I'm trying to impart via this insight article about money is that although most people might go to their graves believing in that old saying that 'money makes the world go around', you don't have to be one of them. You can be someone who steps outside the hamster cage and sees the truth of existence. And, again, what would that be?
The 'that' would be that although important, money is not everything. It is not the magic pill to the unending wants of existence.
Dream with me for a moment and consider that you have all the money you need: more than you'll ever need for the rest of your existence. So much money that your grandchildren will be praising you because of their inheritance as the benefactor of your estate, once you're permanently laying on the other side of the grass. Now with this in mind, what would you do with your life? Really, what would you do?
Got it figured out?
When you do, figure out a way to make that happen in your life. Now that, THAT is buying happiness.
And I ask you: How can you afford not to?
Written by Andre Best
President, Ultimate Results, Inc.
http://www.andrebest.com
'Learn About Life From Another Perspective'
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Posted by Andre Best at 10:16 PM | Comments (1)