At first it might sound like a weird question. But consider it!
Certainly, money has multiple purposes.
It gets us fed.
It gets us clothed and sheltered.
It adds opportunities for socialization.
It gets us transported from A to B..
It can give us a sense of security. Or insecurity.
And there are also other purposes.
Since we usually have choices how to allocate and spend our money, we use it in a way that expresses ourselves. We express ourselves through our personality. And since our personality is a product of our thinking, our attitudes, our cultural attachments, and our prejudices, it is no wonder that our expression of ourselves is inherent in how we spend our money.
We all have needs to be sheltered, clothed, fed, socialized, transported. It is how we get these needs met, that tells the world how we express ourselves monetarily. Do we clothe ourselves in the latest fashion at high expense? Do we shelter in an over-sized, underutilized home? Do we buy over-adorned transport such that we can be seen to exist in luxury? Do we use our money to isolate us from the rest of the world? Do we use our money to harm ourselves and others… with less-than-nutritious food, drink, and environments?
One significant purpose of money is to show others and yourself what kind of person you are. What you spend your money on and how you spend it reveals to the world what you are. It is not only in the day to day expenses that we reveal ourselves, but also in our longer term planning.
One purpose of money is to show the world what kind of person you are.
It is not just in our discretionary purchases. We express ourselves also in the recurring expenses. Our mortgage or rent, our utility bills, our medical and other ongoing costs display us to the world. We are what we spend our money on.
In our journey to financial sanity, we often start by cutting back on expenses. This is a good first step. It frees us from accumulating the extraneous.
But it is only a first step. By the nature of our lives, we have accumulated much. We are drowning in the world we have accumulated for ourselves. By slowing the onslaught of the unnecessary, we have given ourselves some room. But much more space is needed.
Not only do we need to reduce expenses, we need to remove much of the clutter that we have previously accumulated. Clutter is both “stuff” that fills our homes, but it is also “stuff” that has inundates our minds.
It is only by investigating everything about our lives do we stand a real chance of being free. Upon looking into all aspects of our lives, we can then see how our presence is is the world.
One purpose of money is to show ourselves what kind of a person we are.
Can man reconcile the need for possessions and assets with the reality of being one human among many?
What do you think? Comment here.
Test Pattern photo by the author.
The post What Is The Purpose Of Money originally appeared in Smile If You Dare.