Are we addicted to money?

As I've said many times, change presents an opportunity to look deeper into ourselves.  It represents a chance to 'wake-up' to a reality that wasn't part of our prior conscious awareness.  The opportunity to expand our awareness comes not from a closer examination of our surroundings, but from a closer examination of how we are interacting with our surroundings.

The changes associated with the global financial crisis are presenting us with a rare opportunity to glimpse a little bit of our relationship to money.  If it weren't for the shake up we would never have a chance to see just how addicted we are to money.  Addicted?  Does describing our relationship to money as addicted seem a little strong?

Well, maybe, but isn't the definition of an addiction something you can't live without?  In the case of money, we don't think of it as an addiction as long as we're getting a regular income fix.  It's only when our income stream is interrupted that are we given the chance to recognize our dependence.  This is not to say that money isn't used responsibly, and in many cases even generously, but we are living at a time when just about everything we do takes money.  Don't we all need money to pay for food, clothing and shelter?  Of course we do.  And it's only natural that because of this we become attached to money.

Think about the role that money plays in our lives psychologically.  Money provides us with a sense of control.  Money affords us the power to buy the things we need to control our environment.  Money is an insulator.  It insulates us from our problems--we can avoid addressing a situation and simply pay to have it fixed.  Money often insulates us from others.  If you don't like your neighbors build a fence, driving a car insulates us from riding the bus.  Money can even insulate us from ourselves.  For example, having money can lead to a false sense of power, this privilege can result in actions that are wasteful, arrogant or greedy while we remain oblivious to these perceptions of ourselves.  …I wonder if the governor of Illinois is seeing his relationship with money any clearer after his indictment?

So what happens psychologically when we don't have the money to insulate ourselves and control our environment?  From my own experience the spectrum can range from being uncomfortable to terrified.  As I look back on it, I've been trying to understand my relationship with money since before I was even an adult.  I majored in business and went into finance, I thought that working in finance would teach me everything there was to know about money.  I could already see that one needed to make more money than it took to pay for basic needs (rent, food, clothing, transportation).  Having disposable income was the answer to generating savings that could be used for special purchases or investments.  Smart people know that investing is a way for a little money to turn into a lot of money because money makes money!

I followed those basic tenants through the early years of my career and if I say so myself was pretty successful.  But there were problems.  I didn't find the world of large corporations--the posturing and back-stabbing--all that appealing.  In fact, as I rose into the ranks of management I was appalled by the petty, immature behavior exhibited by some senior executives.  I hated the way management treated people--as if they didn't have feelings, or lives outside their jobs, or even a glimmer of recognition that their people were the ones directly responsible for the daily successes of the company.  It was all about money.  And I must say, if you could just close your eyes to the immorality and shoddy ethics, the money was good!  So good, in fact, that I thought it was easy to make money…in hindsight I still had a lot to learn.

It didn't take a lot of deliberation for me to step off the corporate merry-go-round, the problem was what was I going to do?  If money is easy to make how was I going to do it without a job?  I ended up starting my own business.  I worked harder than I'd ever worked before…but the income from my new company only managed to pay the operating expenses.  After three years it was still barely paying the overhead and that didn't include paying anything to myself.  I had been playing the asset liquidation game--using the cash and investments I'd accumulated over the previous ten years to keep up the lifestyle to which we'd become accustomed.  Eventually those assets would run out.

At the time it seemed like there was a lot of complexity to my situation.  It wasn't simply an economic problem.  In addition to struggling to establish a new income stream, I was simultaneously experiencing some sort of spiritual awakening… I witnessed a lot of synchronicity--timing, events, and people who came into my life.  I was drawn to and began a daily meditation practice that continues to this day.  I stopped consuming alcohol.  For a period of time I withdrew from the activities of the outer world and focused on just "Being."  Eventually, time brought the pieces together but it was only in looking back that I had some sense of my path as it had unfolded.

I like to say I never really learned anything about money until I didn't have any.  Only in hindsight would it become clear that I'd been led to test the assumption many of us have that without money you're dead.  It turns out you don't die…but you are sort of figuratively 'dead' to all those people who do have money and are spending it lavishly it to keep up their image and lifestyle.

Not having money may not kill you, but I soon discovered I still needed money to meet my basic needs.  Learning to live with a lot less money really helps you focus on the difference between needs and wants.  I can honestly say that over these past eighteen or nineteen years my needs have always been met.  And if you think about your own situation, I bet you could make the same statement.  Oh, sure, it's rarely, if ever, like you imagined, often times it isn't pretty, still if you pay close attention--however you're able to make it--it works out and that's all that matters.

Many people believe the answer to money is to have so much you never have to worry about it…that would be the fervent belief of regular lottery players.  And who among us hasn't occasionally fantasized about what it'd be like to win millions?  But the tales of actual lottery winners suggest something else.  People who win the lottery soon discover that having all that money creates more problems and heartache than it's worth.  For many their fantasy of having a lot of money turns into a nightmare.

In my experience the more money you have, the more you worry about losing it.  Having a lot of money does free you from worrying about meeting your basic needs.  But that luxury brings with it the very real responsibility of managing your money--keeping it growing, keeping it safe, fending off all the leeches that want a piece of what you have…  And then there's the constant temptation to use it…after all what's the point of having money if not to spend it?  But the more stuff you have the more money it takes for upkeep and maintenance.  And finally, as income rises so does our standard of living.  It's almost a physical impossibility to not want more or better quality things as our income rises.

Robert Kiyosaki in his book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," shared an interesting piece of advice, he said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "You'll never have any money until you learn to control your desire."  Well, his book is all about becoming financially independent, but we can learn something from this thought if we look at it from a different perspective.

It's not really money that we need to master, this life journey is about learning to master ourselves.  The relationships we have with money, with each other, with the planet…are all opportunities to discover more about ourselves.  From this perspective it doesn't matter whether you have a lot of money or no money because it's not about money, it's about expanding conscious awareness of ourselves.

The way we think drives our actions and shapes our experience.  Our experience compels our thinking and further drives our actions giving rise to still more experience.  And around and around we go never able to really discern cause from effect amid continuous motion.

So what's the answer?  Just as it's difficult, if not impossible, to separate cause from effect, it's equally impossible to separate ourselves from the relationship we have with everything in our surroundings.  Our relationship with money is no exception.  Money is simply a medium of exchange it has no inherent good or bad properties.  The qualities we attribute to money are assigned by us--we animate and give meaning to money because we cannot avoid having a relationship with it.

The key is to recognize that our inner relationship--what we've been able to learn about ourselves--is the basis for our relationship with everything in our surroundings, including money.  So inquiring into our relationship with money is one way of mirroring back to us how well we know ourselves...