Money is a useful tool that can help us get what we want and need. However, our desire for money and the way we think about it are not always healthy. Money can cause us to forget what we ultimately seek and distract us from finding out what we truly love. It can also lead us to act in ways that are counterproductive to our ultimate desires. Instead of focusing on money as a concrete measure of what we value, we should aim for what we truly desire and view money as a means to an end. To do this, we must ask ourselves what we think money will give us, and insistently and often consider what we really desire. By doing so, we can avoid the pitfalls of an unhealthy relationship with money and live more fulfilling lives.
Money can cause us to forget what we ultimately seek
Once we have enough money to live, we still desire it for the benefits it gives us and what it represents- pleasure, freedom, security, status, time and so on. However, these feel too intangible to us, so we often substitute what we ultimately desire (e. g. independence) with its alchemical antecedent (money). We think a certain figure of money (e.g. a million pounds) represents our goal of independence or view a pay raise as a symbol of achievement. When we do this, we are comforted in the knowledge that we can measure how we’re doing. Money is concrete and tangible, so we know if we are making progress in obtaining it.
These substitutions seem harmless enough, but they can have damaging consequences. Many identify money closely with ‘security,’ yet never seem to get closer to feeling secure no matter how much they earn. Their vision of ‘security’ swells with their bigger bank balance. When we focus too much on something external to ourselves, we neglect the work of identifying why we feel insecure, and the tacit assumptions we hold about money’s ability to provide the security they seek.
Substituting our goals for a more concrete measure of value can also lead us to act in ways counterproductive to our ultimate desires. We might find ourselves enslaved by our pursuit of money and might gain more independence by living frugally. Similarly, great desire for money can lead to a loss of status (society may perceive you as too money-obsessed), a loss of time (the overworked investment banker), and a loss of pleasure in life (the workaholic retiree who doesn’t know how to enjoy their leisure time). If status, money, and pleasure are what we ultimately want, to act contrary to them is senseless. As Alan Watts observed,
“If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you’ll spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid.”
To rewire ourselves, we ought to ask: what is it that I think money will give me? Then aim for that and view money as just a tool.
Money can distract us from finding out what we truly love
Another problem with money- it can be an obstacle to self-discovery. Since money offers a store of value that is flexible, it promises so many different things. We can project whatever we want on to its blank canvas.
However, the fact that money offers such variety can make us complacent, as it takes away some urgency from the task of properly reflecting on what we want. We think to ourselves, I don’t yet know what I want, but I should focus on getting more money as this will give me more options and resources when I do find out what I want. As Adam Phillips writes in ‘Going Sane’,
‘Money has been our most successful tool for deceiving ourselves about our own desire…it is what they use not only to hide their real wants from themselves- which means to secrete away their histories- but also to protect themselves from working out what may be their heart’s desire… …The love of money lures us away from the loves of childhood. It is the madness of modern human wanting not to want to know about its own wanting. Money is the emblem, for modern people, of the terror of their own desire.’
The reason we do this is borne out of insecurity. Money offers a kind of refuge from fear:
‘Since money always promises something other than itself…it seems to protect us, as promises do, from the fear of there being nothing and no one that we want…Money gives people an appetite for appetite.’
To rewire ourselves, we ought to consider what we really desire doing for its own sake. To do this, ask this question insistently and often: ‘what would I want to do if money was no object?’
We focus too much on getting money and not enough on how we get it
Money is both a product of our labour as well as something we can consume. Yet the production side of the equation is often discounted or rendered invisible when we think about wages and prices.
The chief seductiveness of money: all things being equal, more money is better than less. Given that everyone desires at least something that can be bought with money, it seems illogical not to always want more of it. Even an altruist can put extra money to good use through charitable projects. If they were to forgo that sum, they would cancel their ability to make an important and worthwhile change in the world. What would be the point of that?
And yet, in thinking about money we often emphasise the point ‘more money is better than less’ without remembering the first part ‘all things being equal’. Things are generally not equal. Instead, money is won at very different costs. As Thoreau wrote: ‘The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, either immediately or in the long run.’
If I work for an hour and get £50 for my efforts, all while really enjoying the task, then if I spend that amount on dinner it doesn’t really cost me anything. By contrast, if I have been stressed and anxious throughout the dinner costs a lot; it has taken a lot from me. When we think about money, we should focus both on the cost of acquiring money, as well as the cost of spending it, so we can get a more accurate barometer of value.
To rewire ourselves, we should ask ourselves: is the value trade-off worth it?
