Tag: money

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Day 18 of Gratitude – Money

  By Uncategorized

I despise money. It ties my head in knots when I even think about the stuff.  Despite that, I had a conversation with some non-writer friends this week that made me realize just how grateful I am for the stuff.

The premise of the conversation was that, as a society, we use money to evaluate a person’s worth. Being a relatively new and unknown author, not only don’t I make a lot of money, but the temporal and causal disconnect between the act of writing and receiving money is huge. And so, when I look at my writing, I have to find other measures of value for the endeavor to feel worthwhile. One person in the conversation agreed that money isn’t an accurate reflection of value, while the other suggested I look into various paying part-time positions so that I would feel worthwhile. For her, money was a reflection of value. And as it turns out, all of us were right.

Money is what we use to obtain those things that are necessary for life and comfort. Money procures housing, heat, clean water, electricity, internet, electronic communication tools, food, etc. – the necessities of modern life. Money is very important to us for that reason. If you are doing an activity that neither directly provides for your family nor is paying money with which to support your family, then what good are you? As long as your family is in need of money for the necessities, money DOES reflect the value of your activity.

But what about when you aren’t in need of money for the necessities? I live a modest life and am by no means rich. A house burglar would find nothing to fence but a couple of aging computers. But we have enough to provide for our necessities for the foreseeable future. When we reached that point, money became meaningless to me. I couldn’t stand the thought of working harder and harder at a job I didn’t enjoy in order to keep making more and more money that I could get by without. And so I left my illustrious career as a health care lawyer in order to write full-time – to pursue value that was not measured in money.

Some say that I earned this opportunity because I worked hard and saved money, but I know it was chance as much as anything else. I am fortunate to pursue my passion rather than pursuing money, but it is only because of money that I am here. And so to that money – stuff providing the necessities – I am very grateful.

 

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Money is a Selfish Master

  By Commentary, Myself and I

I’ve been thinking about the important connections in my life – those things and relationships I would willingly endure real sacrifices to maintain.  The list isn’t startling – my husband, my son, my family and close friends, one of my old bosses, my internet access (yes, it does rise to that level).

Money isn’t on that list – or even close to it.  So why is most of my time and nearly all of my energy consumed by the acquisition and maintenance of money?  Of course, I need money to survive in this world.  I must keep a roof over my head and food on the table and a number of other necessities of the modern world.  But all too often I have substituted money, itself, as the goal.  And what have I learned?  Money is a selfish master.

Money sets itself as a self-perpetuating goal.  For the first two or three years of our marriage, my husband and I lived below the poverty line.  We ate the surplus cheese distributed from the back a white box truck.  We cooked together.  Cleaned together.  Anything that broke, we fixed ourselves or did without. And we had fun. I’m not saying there weren’t downsides. Carefully calculating the cost of the food in the cart  to make sure we’d have enough money left to pay the rent was not “fun.” But we had time and energy to spend on the things we enjoyed.

We don’t do those things much anymore. We talk about them.  Often, by the end of the weekend, we tell ourselves we are going to go for walks together every day. We are going to do more cooking.  We are going to dig into the home repair projects.  And then on Monday, we go to work, our jobs consume us, and we find ourselves sitting at home, watching TV or staring at the computer, not talking, not moving, and not getting anything done.  So eventually, we pay someone to do those things we had planned to do ourselves.  We hire a handyman to fix the molding and paint the trim, and we go to restaurants where someone else will cook.  But those things cost money, so we must work harder to pay for those things.

Wait.  The things we enjoyed are the things we are now paying someone else do to because we’re too tired from working to pay for those people to do them? That doesn’t make much sense.  But, for me at least, it is the nature of pursuing money.  The goal keeps getting higher, remaining just out of reach, while forcing away life’s simple pleasures.

So I’ve decided to do something about it.  I am stepping away from the work world for a few months to readjust both my priorities and my budget.  This isn’t going to be a world-travel kind of sabbatical, although I imagine we will do some exploring.  I will continue my writing and plan to spend far more time on it. But some of the time I had spent in the pursuit of money will be used remembering how to live with less of it, and doing the things I’ve always enjoyed.

I’m planning to blog from time to time about how it is going.  I am sure there will be ups and downs, some expected, some not.  Where will this lead?  What will happen?  I don’t know, and that is something new and exciting in my life. That, alone, is good.  Stay tuned.

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Values Are Not For Making Money

  By Commentary

I was playing around on Twitter the other day and searched #Values to look for a community of people who were discussing what personal and societal values mean in our lives and our interactions.  I found a few, but the  larger percentage of tweets focused on something else: money. I clicked on several to see what they were about, and found a commonality in the messages that goes something like this (expanded out of Twitter-speak):

Big companies use values to guide their decisions to maximize profit. Acting in accordance with your values will make you more money, too.

Most of these have a link to click on, and about a third of them offer to teach you this process of using values to achieve monetary wealth – for a fee. Following the instructions on these websites will result in more money – for the site owner!

But acting consistent with your core values is not about making money. It brings a different type of wealth made up of contentment, strength, strong friendships and harmony. It makes you a more effective person to those around you. Perhaps that will result in more money as well, but perhaps it will not.

If you need to pay someone, such as a clinical counselor, to help you identify your core values and what you should be doing to align your life with them, it is probably worth it. You won’t miss the money in the long run.  But I’d suggest not paying someone who says it will bring you money, because if they don’t understand the nature of prize, they probably aren’t living that life themselves.

Personally, I have no need for snake oil. Thanks.