How to think about Money?

Few thoughts on how people should think of money.

Hi.

Reading time: About 4 minutes

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Money is a very funny thing. Everyone has a different relationship with money. There are some people who can do nothing but think about money and there are some people who have the luxury to not think about money at all.

I don’t think I should be speaking a lot about money and how you should think about it because I am a 20 year old who does not earn money. I don’t know how hard it is to earn it or how much it matters. My life has been one where I have got everything that I have wanted and asked for. I am grateful for that. But I also have read a lot of stories. From my perspective and this is coming from a very privileged one these are some of my thoughts.

Interestingly enough, I don’t think there is one right way to think about money.

Let’s consider a person who has to fight for his daily survival. Earn money every day to get food on the table. For a person like this, I would assume they have to be thinking about money a lot and finding new ways to make money. There is nothing wrong with thinking about money as something very important in this case because they have to.

Money is very important when you don’t have any.

On the other hand think about a person who is a child of a wealthy family. That person does not need any money. He does not need to think about money if he needs anything. In fact even all his wants would be covered. Again I assume this person would not be thinking about money a lot.

In both cases their relationship with money is valid. In both cases there is enough justification. Not thinking about money at all is also fine and thinking about it a lot is also fine.

What I want to spend more time addressing is the fact that everyone who becomes rich ends up saying money does not buy you happiness.

After a certain, basic amount that is required for a reasonable daily life, unless put to its rightful use, the extra money could end up consuming one’s life and make one actually less happy than before. - Paras Chopra

This is a very powerful point. Money is like a drug as most people say. If you end up using it for material things it will consume your life. You will get into the hedonic treadmill where you constantly envy others and that becomes your driver.

I’d just that morning heard a podcast about the time Damon, along with his best friend, Ben Affleck, won the Academy Award for writing Good Will Hunting. Damon was twenty-seven at the time, and Affleck twenty-five. In the euphoria and glitz of that starry night, Damon remembered feeling an odd, overwhelming sense of relief that he had won so young. Not so he could be listed as one of the youngest to win the award, which he was, but for a different reason. The Oscar, Damon noted, was an accolade almost every actor and screenwriter aspired to, yet only 0.002 percent in Hollywood ever win. At twenty-seven, Damon held it in his hands—a gold-plated figure symbolizing a weighty achievement—at a time when many spent lifetimes chasing such honors. But as the night wore on, the allure of the statue began to fade. Returning home, his girlfriend went to bed, leaving Damon alone, pondering the weight of the 13.5-inch-tall Oscar in his hand. He realized the fortune of winning it at a relatively young age. He imagined the hollowness of winning it at ninety, after a lifetime of yearning, only to realize that it was just that: something to yearn for, nothing more. Damon concluded his story by noting how grateful he was that he now had the rest of his life ahead of him to focus on what truly mattered: honing his craft and telling stories, instead of fixating on little gold trophies.

Wilkinson, Andrew. Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire (pp. 245-246).

Like Damon winning the Oscar becoming wealthy is an accolade which many realise does not matter as much we think it does.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. - Franklin, Benjamin, Poor Richard's Almanac

I think the simple thing that I can relate with is when you are driven to achieve something and you work really hard to get it at the end of the day I think the outcome is not the thing that makes you happy. I think it is the process.

When I think about this the first thing that strikes me is the hard work that athletes put in to succeed. Not everyone does end up becoming a professional athlete. But the process is one where you can look back on and say that you enjoyed.

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Interesting find

Thank you for reading,

Samvit.