A reader writes:
Q. You first purported to be a site about frugality and about retirement, but many of your posts are about attitude and thinking. What gives?
A. I like writing about money and frugality, money and retirement, and related topics. But I found that these are mostly mechanical aspects of behavior. I realize that attitude is as important if not more important than most other topics.
If one does not or cannot question one’s thinking, then positive change, whether financial or any other kind, is likely not to happen. For it is in one’s thinking that change occurs before any outward change can happen.
It is the change that occurs when one’s questions allows one to open up to other possibilities.
And it is by attitude that one can maintain the momentum once change begins. By continuing to examine my attitudes and my thinking I can have a chance to continue towards any changes I wish to make. It would be impossible to move in the direction of any goals without being aware of and working on my attitudes about what I am doing.
So frugality, financial independence, financial freedom, or whatever name is given or is used, begins in the mind.
What It Isn’t, What It Is
I’m not talking about revving oneself up with doses of “positive thinking.” While positive thinking might or might not be a good thing, it is just another method of self-talk. While it may have some short-term benefit, I am not confident about the long term effects of positive thinking. I am confident that knowing who I am, what I am, what I want, and what I want for myself has a greater influence on how I behave. So by knowing myself, I know more about how to move myself forward.
How Does One Get To Know Oneself?
A big question. First I would say that one needs great doubt. Great doubt means allowing myself to be able to question things I have previously taken for granted. It also allows me to question all assumptions I carry with me. For those assumptions are the cause of a great burden. Freedom also means jettisoning one’s unnecessary burdens.
Examples of the Burden of Assumptions
Things one believes because, well, one assumes they are true. Here are some examples of things that have crossed my mind in the (distant) past. I’ll never make enough money…. I’m stuck in this low paying job…. How will I ever get ahead…. I am such a loser…. Things will never get better…. There are no other jobs…. I’ll never get out of this mess…. The boss hates me…. I always get the short end of the stick…. And so on!
Written out like that, one can easily see they are extreme and unyielding statements. But when they arise from within, in the midst of unhappy experiences or unfortunate events, they can take on a life of their own. We can hold on to these kinds of thinkings and convince ourselves that are probably true.
It’s been a long time since I went in that direction, and it has been a long road out. These days I am much more aware of how I think and how I form thoughts and what meaning I find in external events. So, in my view, it is looking at my thinking that is at the core of how to take care of myself emotionally, and by extension, financially.
And it is by looking at my thinking (can I say it: by looking at my thinking about my thinking), that I have the opportunity to free myself from rigidity and preconceived ideas. That all is the beginning of allowing change into my life.
How have you opened yourself to change your thinking in your life? I would like to hear from you. Send me a comment here.
The 1667 map of China “Imperium Sinicum in XV Regna seu Provincias ….” was created by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) was published in Amsterdam by “apud Joannem Janssonium a Waesberge & Elizeum Weyerstraet.” Courtesy New York Public Library.
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