Money is a reality of life. Has it ever occurred to you that there’s almost universal consensus on the reality of man as a fact of life? It so happens that since the invention of money, our lives revolve around money. We value our labor using money. We value our time in monetary terms. We value property in monetary terms and even now we gauge individuals based on their net worth. In other words, money has become the framework on which we value almost everything in our lives.
Over the holidays, I took a break from the city to unwind and rejuvenate for the year. It was a fulfilling moment from the conversations with my folks, interactions with friends in the village and the chilled moments. I also took this period to reflect on this topic of money. For an entire year, I was in the city working to make a living in the form of money and it’s given that in this year, this is going to be the norm. This made me question whether the essence of our lives should be about making money. In an earlier article I wrote about reconciling our purpose with pursuit for money which still holds but in this piece I’ll delve into another concept altogether.
As we are starting off a new year, most if not all have aspirations to make more money or at least be able to sustain their livelihoods. This is pegged on them being able to make money. However, on the same account I believe we all need to have a reason for making money especially beyond the basic necessities of living. This is because in my reflections I tend to believe that our pursuit of money is driven by desire to acquire certain things in life e.g. a car, a home etc. I am not against this but my question is, what then when you’ve got these? Do you stop or do you start chasing an illusion for a dream? When I say an illusion, it’s the tendency to spend money on things based on the context in which you find yourself. If peers are buying jets you also make a purchase because you can without regard to whether you need it or not. This is why I think and believe we all need a money philosophy.
A money philosophy is our rationale and principle for why we need money and the value of that money in our lives as an enabler to the realization of our pursuits in life. Our pursuits are never material but emotional manifested in material acquisitions, provisions or cherishable moments. We get to concretize our money philosophy our pursuit for money will not be a lose aspiration but rather substantive and focused. We become seekers of the essence of our lives rather than pursuers of mans greatest creation of all times: money.
My wish for you this year is that you develop your money philosophy to guide your pursuit for money as your become a seeker of your life’s essence.
“The philosophy of money is the mode of the intellectual inquiry of the essence of money as a social phenomenon and its influence on the «world of things», the «world of people» and the «inner world» of the individual.” – Alla Sheptun, The Philosophy of Money