The Truth about Money

Good old money... the thing everyone wants more of, can't get enough of, and can't seem to hold on to.

We know what money is... or do we? Even though we understand the concept of money, it's not something that stays in the forefront of our minds. We don't think about the implications of the money itself when we are deciding on a purchase... or buying something on impulse. We accept money, as it is, and allow it to be a regular, unquestioned part of our lives.

Clarity on the concept of money would help a lot of people spend a lot less. Money itself represents something we all cherish... life.

Money isn't paper, it isn't hard work, it isn't a method of trading...

It is our very life force as represented by all of the above. We spend our time at work to earn money. That is time that could be spent somewhere else... with our families, our friends, our pets, in solitude, meditation or writing our magnum opus. Instead, we spend that time (often) in an environment that is unpleasant and even toxic, completing tasks that don't have personal meaning to us, suffering under the pressure of stress to meet deadlines and appease others.



Our lives are bought and sold in dollars.

Let that sink in a moment. Every hour that you work for someone else is an hour of your life that someone is buying from you. You are selling your youth, your health and your vitality. You are selling your piece of mind and you are selling time with your loved ones, your kids, your grandkids. You are selling off time that could be spent with your best friend, or painting, or walking your dog. You are selling off time that could be spent in meditation or another spiritual pursuit.

We look at the time left in our lives as something so precious, everyone wants more and tries to meter and count out what they have left. Every single human on planet Earth feels like they do not and cannot have enough time to really live their lives as fully as they'd want to.

For what do we give up more than half of our lives?

A bigger house
Designer jeans
Big ugly sunglasses
That hot new lip gloss
A faster (or flashier) car
Appliances that save us time (irony, no?)
A bank account that says "anything that comes my way I can handle"
A constanly morphing wardrobe of the next greatest things
Houses full of crap we look at maybe 3 times in our life and then it gets tossed aside for the next thing we find.



Be honest... how many pieces of clothing are in your closet that you've never worn?

How much did they cost?

I have three pieces I can think of and they cost a total of about $100. At my rate of pay adjusted for taxes...

Those articles of clothing cost me more than EIGHT HOURS of my life... to sit in a closet, unused.

And that doesn't even account for items purchased on credit. That adds even more hours of your life to the cost of those things. The longer they sit there, the more hours they accumulate... because you are potentially paying for a larger space than you need to or may be cleaning and reorganizing these things often...



I would estimate that in my life thusfar I have wasted 10,000-20,000 dollars on items I did not use or space for the items I wasn't using. That accounts to around a thousand life-hours or forty-two days... and that is only a guestimate based on what I can recall.

If your doctor told you that you might live six more months, how much would those forty-two days be worth to you? I'm betting it's more per hour than you're earning now...



Next time you're browsing a store and you find a really cool, $100 coffee pot that you "must have", consider that it may cost more than eight hours of your life... perhaps then the old coffee pot at home -that still works- will look a lot more appealing.