6 Reasons Why You Probably Don’t “Want” Money
Success, like happiness, is relative. It changes as people change how they relate to its terms. And their relatability changes as they go through life from being scrawny teenagers without ideas or passions, to the matured adulthood of having unique pursuits in life.
That everyone can relate at all in their own heartfelt ways is what keeps success not contradictory.
But all this takes a dynamic shift for most people of today when it comes to deciding who’s successful, and who’s not. For them, there are two platforms that they can relate to: One is where there is bankruptcy, loss, and consequently grief and suffering; and the other is the pool that Ray Dalio sits by to spend his hot summer mornings.
It becomes a paradox in itself. Ray Dalio is worth around $17 billion. He says:
“Having spent time with some of the richest, most powerful, most admired people in the world, as well as some of the poorest, most disadvantaged people in the most obscure corners of the globe, I can assure you that, beyond a basic level, there is no correlation between happiness levels and conventional markers of success.”
It becomes a paradox that a path particularly forged towards piling up money is going to be never-ending. Like trying to grasp the proverbial carrot. It’s always going to be suspended at a point distanced slightly more than an arm’s length, but your pursuit to grasp it is probably what makes it literally unattainable.
The other day, I was in deep conversation with a friend.
At one point, we drifted, and I challenged him to name a few of the most successful people ever to live on Earth. He came up with the following: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc.
But that’s not the point.
There is something to be said about how he came up with the names rather than what he came up with. When I asked him what each one of those successful people did for a living, he failed to come up with a quick answer for more than half his list, other than that they all were rich, and were worth billions.
This made me think quite a lot.
Is money what truly defines success? Is money the only standard that one can measure against to know how far ahead in the game he is?
No.
Unless you want to imitate other people’s standards of success, and hence lose most of yourself in an endless pursuit, trust me, you don’t really want money. Sure, you may need money from time to time, but what’s important is not giving money a superior status of “want”, and prioritizing it over all the other little and big things life has to offer.
And the truth is, you wouldn’t be wanting the billions if it wasn’t for your desire to fit in with the standards of a misconceived life of a successful person. In fact, you exactly know why money is only a by-product of doing all the things you love, and being with people you admire. You just need to prioritize those over everything else.
Here are 6 reasons how it’s in you to understand to do that:
1. You have a purpose to fulfill in life.
You may think your life started right when you were born into this world, but it actually did when you found out why.
Nothing serves your life energy like when you know what it is you have to get done before you leave, and what you have to do to get there. This is what compensates for your gift of breath, and helps you give back to your society, by ultimately giving back to yourself.
If you are focused on your mission, you are truly considerate of giving all of what you can to ensure that you attain it. Money simply becomes a resource, and not the goal.
2. You value your family more.
You understand it’s the best thing to spend quality time with your family, and not be on an endless rat race to keep your bank balance growing.
Oftentimes, it’s telling your family that you will be with them whenever they need you that gives them happiness, than when you are earning twice as much, only to miss dinner everyday.
Quality time with family sets the grounds for contentment, and it further helps you live peacefully, with an agreeable — but not full on — approach towards money.
3. More often than not, you only settle for less when you settle for money.
Whatever you do in life, you will have two options to choose from: You can either prioritize your passion, and receive money as a by-product, or you can prioritize money, and hope to land fulfillment of your passion as the by-product.
The thing is, when you prioritize money over all other things that matter to you, you won’t really get to have those things just on the grounds the very pursuit of money traps you in a never-ending loop.
As a result, you happen to settle for something lesser than your baseline. You are not using money to live a life, but living your life to use your money. If you still haven’t figured it out, it’s something immensely degrading to your purpose, and probably makes sure to leave the best of your skills untapped.
4. Money makes you worry only about the end-result, that you miss the big picture.
The end-result is the penthouse. It’s the espresso by the swimming pool. It’s the Lamborghini. It’s the million-dollar suit. It’s the partying, and it’s everything that comes with an expensive life.
When you are so considerate about the end-rewards, there is probably no way you can have enough time to focus on the process.
And the process is what defines who you are being made into. It’s what helps you hone your craft, and know about the importance of being an activist in the present to preface a successful future.
5. Money makes you diverge towards other fields that you are not interested in.
Even if you have a passion and a purpose, lacking the mental picture of how not important money is still can make you choose the easiest, money-defined alternatives over what you have your heart in.
This is what makes you take a cubicle job when your success as the person you want to be is not guaranteed.
The same way, this is what makes you choose short-term validation and instant gratification over having a lifelong reputation as of someone brave enough to follow his heart.
You spend the rest of your life only for the pay, trying to convince yourself your art needs honing forever, or that your startup idea is stupid as hell.
6. Money makes you miss the value that most of the everyday things have.
If you are only focused on earning lots of money, mistakes are probably the worst things you can make.
It tunnels your vision.
On any given day, you either worked hard enough to warrant earning more — or you didn’t.
You don’t have time to grow personally, learn from mistakes, and work towards finding the true meaning of your skills. You just can’t experiment with new things, but rather are forced to embark on a routine that will keep you fixed with your pay.
This will habitually decrease all that you can amount to in other areas of your life as well.
