Soul of Money

When I first started exploring this whole money thing, I found masses of information on how to be a millionaire — but not much on if you wanted to be richer, but not necessarily a millionaire. Try as I might, I couldn’t get turned on by the thought of being a millionaire — and anyway, what was one? OK, I understood I could have a million pounds worth of assets and be considered one,

but that felt a bit unreal to me. Unless I had a huge dream of what I wanted to do with all those assets, why would I have them?

And if I had a million quid in cash, what would I do with that? This is what led me to explore what I really wanted to do with my life. Which is a good question to ask yourself by the way, and the real nub of that dinner party question ‘what would you do if you won the lottery?’ For me, if I didn’t have a burning desire for a million pound project, then what would I do with it? Indeed. Set me thinking, I can tell you.

So that led me to explore the idea of ‘enough’. What exactly was enough? How did it differ from my friend’s idea of enough? Or from the idea of someone who lived in a developing country? I’d already noticed that if I ‘got’ something, I just wanted more. So could ‘enough’ ever actually be reached? I wasn’t at all sure.

As you can imagine, these kinds of thoughts were getting in the way of me setting goals, deciding what I wanted monetarily, and generally progressing. I just couldn’t find a way for bringing in millions that sat happily with my values of recycling, reusing, supporting Fair Trade in food AND clothes, and generally being thrifty. For instance, I wasn’t (and amn’t) interested in fast cars. Couldn’t care less about them. I’m not particularly interested in a big house (because I like energy efficient houses, and when there are only two people in the house, this is likely to be small). And I’m not much interested in fashion either; I just don’t see the point of it really. So buying designer clothes for their label is beyond me. So buying stuff wasn’t going to be how I would spend my millions.

However, now I’ve read this book, I’ve found an answer. Lynne Twist describes it for me in her toxic scarcity myths, namely a) there’s never enough, b) more is better, and c) that’s just the way it is. Basically, if you subscribe to the idea that there’s never enough, you always have to get more, which feeds into the second belief, that more in itself is better. The third myth keeps the system staying the same.

But the trouble is, that if enough doesn’t exist then you never get satisfied. And what on earth is the point of that? I’m sure some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about here. It manifests itself in the times you go shopping, get a beautiful item, and then the next day the pleasure in it has more or less worn off, and you end up wanting more. And so the vicious circle goes on. In fact, it’s like an addiction, which is another way of saying ‘you can never get enough’.

So, I’ve decided to expand my thinking about ‘enough’. I’ve decided to explore this idea of ‘what is enough’ in all areas of my life, including money. Watch this space for what happens!

Jane