Does your money care if you save it? Or spend it? Or invest it? Let’s find out.
Sometimes people inbue money with an emotional presence. As if money cares about what you do with it. But I find that an impossible thing to accept.
Money does not contain emotions or feelings. Money is an inanimate object.
A True Story
Back some 25 or more years ago, when the internet was a fledgling experience, I had a conversation with a young teenager, about thirteen years old at the time. He had heard conflicting opinions from others as to whether the internet was “bad or “good.”
So I asked him a question: If someone called you up on the telephone and told you that you won a million dollars, would you think the telephone was good or bad? “Good,” he replied. So I asked him another question: If someone called you up on the telephone and told you someone had died, would you think the telephone was good or bad? “Bad,” he replied.
Perhaps it was his age, where everything (or many things) would need to fit into some inflexible category of judgment. My view, which I explained to the young man, is that the internet, like hammer or a saw, was a tool. It all depends on how one uses it, and wondered if one even needs to determine whether is is “good” or “bad.”
As the saying goes, Good and Evil have No Self-Nature. It is only us humans who make make Good and Bad.
And so it is with money. It is not good or bad, and it does not know what we are, how we use it, nor has any judgment about itself or us. When people have spoken with serious intent about wanting to be on “Easy Street,” I inwardly recoil. While it seems superstition is an inevitable part of the human experience, and would be ever so, I doubt that things like money are animate.
Therefore, I look at money as a tool. I can use it to my ability to assist me in my goals. It helps keep me alive by providing food and shelter. But I would be remiss in my humanity, and even derelict, if I looked at money as anything but a tool or as a supply of items. Like having nails or screws when building something out of wood. Lack of nails or screws would hamper one’s ability to build. So one needs a certain amount of that kind of hardware to proceed. But once the object is built, my focus moves on to other things.
And Then
Some many years ago I read a book called Money Is My Friend. Not recalling the contents of this book, but the title points to the reality that for many people money is seen as something difficult to be contended with, and that an attitude change is necessary. Changing one’s mindset is a necessarily journey from scarcity to abundance, so the title itself is an eye-opening idea.
Without money when money is needed can put anyone in a tough place. And it is possible to become disheartened over the seeming difficulty one might have with acquiring enough money for basic needs. So attitude then plays a large part in avoiding blaming and gloom, and embracing the possibilities for change.
On the other hand, having money does not signify anything about a person’s humanity. Some may argue with that statement, but that is my view. We seem to think people with money are “better,” but they are not. They have the same foibles and personality disadvantages as everyone else. They just have more tools available to themselves. (Some might cynically say that people with money are more likely to misuse themselves and their money.)
After basic needs are met, money is possibility… in that the presence of money as a tool presents possibilities for its use. And that’s all it is.
What about you? You can let me know here.
About Emails
As mentioned recently, we have discontinued email notifications of new posts. One way to keep up to date on new posts is to use an RSS reader. An RSS reader is an application (desktop or phone) that tracks websites and displays a notice when a new item is found, and then often allows you to open the new page. There are numerous RSS readers, find one you like. I use Feedly. (This is a recommendation, not an endorsement, )
Additionally, I am notified when a message is sent to me when you make a comment. Recenly I discovered that I was not getting some comments as a result of an email problem. So if you sent a message in recent weeks, I may not have received it. That has been fixed.
The drawing of a mythical beast is from “Book of Hours” attributed to an artist of the Ghent-Bruges school and dating from the late 15th century. At the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.
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