#3
Everyone wants to be rich. We imagine ourselves living in gigantic houses with half a dozen pools and more rooms than we can count. Why do we want this? Because we think that it will make us happy. But it doesn’t. Humans have a basic and natural desire for comfort, but too much of it begins to hurt us. Here are 7 reasons why a small pocketbook may not be such a bad thing. 1. Having less money encourages us to focus on our relationships. When we have a surplus of disposable cash, inevitably, we spend a lot of it. Is spending money bad? No. Its where and how we spend that gets us into trouble. Extra money often goes to things like nicer phones, better TVs, gaming consoles, trips to exotic places, and so on. Where that money does not go is toward our friendships. In fact, with the things mentioned above, spending on ourselves can draw us away from our friends and family. Without money, the danger of this decreases dramatically. We don’t have money to spend on ourselves, so we occupy ourselves friends and family, with the people who were always more important to us in the first place. 2. Statistics show that the highest income bracket is not the happiest income bracket. Time Magazine reported a few years back that money DOES buy happiness… but only to a certain extent. They said that, the more money you earn, the happier you will be, up an annual income of $75,000. This is because, once you reach that level of income, financial strains (in large part) cease to be an issue. But once, financial problems are solved, money does not do very much to affect our day to day mood. So, even though so many of us dream of that six figure job, it may not be as satisfying as we thought. 3. Less money, more rewarding experiences. Want a dream car? How about a cruise in the Caribbean? Or a vacation home in Florida? Those are all nice things, and not bad things to have. But what happens when we can afford seven dream cars? A cruise every year? Or a vacation home in Florida, one in Phoenix and one in LA? What happens is this: the more we have, the less we appreciate it. One hamburger sounds great, but after eating two, three four: the hamburger loses its appeal. The less we have of something, the more memorable it is, the more fun, exciting and enjoyable it is. 4. Less money, more value assigned to possessions. This one is similar to #3. Just like experiences feel more worthwhile if they’re harder to come by, possessions are more valuable if we work harder for them. They sculpture we make in ceramics class is far more valuable to us than the one we find at a thrift store. Why? Because we did that ourselves; we did the work. So too, when we don’t have a lot of money, we appreciate the things we have more because they don’t come as easily. When we have less money, we have to think about where it’s going, and decide what is really important, and what is not. 5. Money leads to temptation and vice. This one should be obvious. People are more likely to do something they shouldn’t when it is easy for them than when it is difficult. We are more likely to take money from someone’s kitchen table than from the bank; more likely to eat a friend’s chocolates than nab some from a grocery store. This is what money does to us: it puts us within reach of things that are not good for us. A smoking or drinking addiction is harder to kick when you have the money to spend on it. Not having disposable income helps keep things we shouldn’t have out of our reach. 6. Avoiding the cycle of selfishness. As I stated in #1, not having money forces us to find our joy in time spent with other people rather than possessions. To add on to that, living without a surplus of disposable income saves us from ourselves. The more money we have, the more we will spend on ourselves. It is incredibly hard, when we come into any amount of free or extra money, not to spend it improving our own lives. There’s always just that one last thing that, if we had it, we would be content. But then, once we have it, then there’s another thing we need, and another and another… the easy solution to the cycle of self-satisfaction, is not having money in the first place. Without money, it is so much easier to think about others. 7. Keeping track of life’s priorities. What is important? When we look back on our lives 50, 60 or 70 years from now, what sorts of things will we wish we had done differently? What sorts of things will we wish we had done more of? Friends, family and shared experiences are among the irreplaceable, unrepeatable treasures of life. Sure, having money may help you to see friends and family, or share memorable experiences with others, but money will never replace those things. In fact, money has the danger of distracting us from the important things. It can pull us away from relationships, towards possessions and unhealthy habits, all the while making us think that if we only had a little more money, we’d have it made. Keep track of what’s important, and make sure the money isn’t getting in the way of it. In spite of all that I’ve just said, having money is not a bad thing. So long as money doesn't pull us away from the things that will truly make us happy (i.e friends, family, shared experience), then it is a good thing. Money can be a marvelous tool for building a happy life. But just like any of tool, use it wrong, and you’ll end up making things worse and having more work than you started out with.
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Nick MartinMy name is Nick Martin. I write sometimes. These are my thoughts. Archives
July 2021
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