Money
There’s a reason this isn’t the first post.
- Money is an amplifier.
- Money creates options
- Money creates time
- Time = Money. Time = Freedom. Therefore Money = Freedom.
- Money is an illusion
I’m so grateful and lucky to have had money all my life. There have been many times when I’ve operated in a place of fear, that I wouldn’t have enough, that I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills, that I’d overcommitted. I used to think that not having money was a motivator, that it made me work hard. I was never good at piling it up in the past, and I had to unlearn some bad habits. But let me share a few things I have learned over the years because money is important.
Some people see money as their aim. That is the end goal. It will solve all your problems. It can be a huge motivator for people who didn’t have money, especially as a small child. It can dominate their personal and work lives. The pursuit of it. The accumulation of it. The piling it up.
What you have to realize is money in itself, will not fill that void. Will not solve the feeling of being poor. Will not satisfy your need for comfort, and security. Money is just a scorecard. How much value do you add to the person who is giving you money? How valuable is the service you provide? How good is your decision making? How do you place your bets? Your bank account will simply reflect those choices. But that’s it. Once you get past a certain point, where you’ve got the stuff you want, a bigger pile is simply a game. The people who play the game to get more realize that money is abundant, and you can have more and more if you want it.
The flip side of the abundance of money, is when money is scarce due to choices or circumstance. And let’s be real, you need a base amount of it. Money is like oxygen, if you have it, you hardly notice it. But f you don’t have any, getting some is the only thing that matters. It’s part of the hierarchy of needs. It’s the base of the pyramid. It’s the foundation of our society, and what everything else is built on. So you don’t need all of it, but you sure need some of it.
So what happens when you go from having a bit, to having more, to having a lot? Quite simply money is an amplifier of who you are. If you’re an asshole, you’re going to be an even bigger asshole. If you throw money at problems, your problems will get bigger and you’ll throw more money at them. If you’re an amazing person, money will help you extend your reach and deliver to those more value than you ever dreamed possible. You’re the same person, just more.
There are some major benefits to having money, the principle one is the fact that money creates time. If there are things you’re not good at, you can spend money and get those things provided for you. Say you can’t, or don’t like to, cook. You can have just about any meal delivered to your door. Or say you can’t, or don’t like to, mow the grass. You can have a landscaping company do that for you.
Don’t like to shop, there’s Amazon and others. Don’t like to cut your own hair, there’s a barber shop nearby. Don’t like to whatever, there is someone who is better at that thing, and is willing to be paid to do it, whose services you can employ. So by paying other people to do those things for you, most likely faster, better, and cheaper than you could have, then that frees up your time to be great at whatever it is your great at.
There are a lot of correlations between time and money. The biggest one is you ‘spend’ time, and you spend money. You can also invest time, and invest money. Just those two things should help you recognize that they are related. Not only that there’s the saying that time equals money. And in certain ways, it does. To take it one step further, some people also say that money can buy you freedom. Freedom of what? Your time.
You can do what you want, when you want, with whomever you want (assuming the amplified you is someone they want to spend time with). So when you look at it that way, if time equals money, and money equals freedom of time, then in certain ways, money equals freedom.
I think that’s money’s tremendous draw for a lot of people, certainly me. Not money for money’s sake, but the freedom of time that money provides.
The final thing to realize about money is it’s not real. It’s a construct. It’s an easy way to try to embody value for goods, and provide a medium of exchange. But it’s only valuable because we all say it is. It’s only a thing because we all agree it’s a thing. That’s a little crazy, but it works. Enough people, believing in a thing, whether it’s gold, or dollars, or bitcoin, it’s an amazing illusion that tons of things are built on. It will be fascinating to see how it evolves over time.