Is more money the answer? Right now, with everything that is going on it does seem like it it is. You can eat, pay rent, pay off loans, build that business, meet your bills more comfortably, spend more on things you like etc. But remember that once this is done you will need more again. When you got your last pay increase pay that first month may have been comfortable. And then the bills caught up and shortly more money was needed. In my book, Making Cents, I have said that money is one of the tools for the life you want, but it is not the life. This is because there is always a bigger number. If you get one million shillings you will want five million then ten million then one hundred million. So yes, money can give some sense of immediate provision and security. Having a source of income allows you to know you will eat, pay bills, live etc. Having those investments and savings allows you to know you to have a backup, retirement funds, school fees etc. However, the sense of “enough” keeps being elusive. In addition, there are times when money is not there as is the situation for many of us right now, so we have to truly understand that our actual sense of freedom cannot come from money. Your ‘enough’ cannot be money.
Let’s dream and say you finally become a billionaire. What is the point of being a billionaire when you still think it is not enough, approach life with the same scarcity mentality you had before the billion and live in constant fear of losing your billions? You look like the poster of freedom – go on nice holidays, drive nice cars, live in a mansion but you are not free. Chances are even the people around you are in it for the money, so you don’t have genuine relationships. You have even probably convinced yourself that it is another billion that will resolve the insecurities you have inside, but it will only compound it in this state. Those of us who don’t have the billions aspire to have what you have because we don’t know the internal struggle. Then in our own way we get ourselves into a version of the problem you have as we aspire to be you, thinking that is what freedom and happiness looks like. We may even strangle ourselves with debt to look the part. Right now many people have told me they are looking at their parked cars wondering why they bought them? The question that reveals how free you are is “Who are you without the money?” and everything that it allows you to have. Would you be OK if you had to stop driving that car, move out of the house, start the business all over, let go of the job title, live a simpler lifestyle or reduced income? Is your source of identity anchored on all these things that never feel enough and can be shaken often because of circumstances beyond your control like we have witnessed? Can you fill confident and balanced about yourself with and without? With more and with less? Do you feel better about yourself because of the things you can do because of money or the things you can do because of who you are? I think times are calling us now to put money into the right perspective.
One can be very wealthy and enter the trap of defining themselves because of money. This is giving money a job description it was never meant to have. Someone else can be equally or much less wealthy but as they grew, they took more pride in who they became. Their character. This is more sustainable. Even if you are not wealthy, haven’t met your goals or you are right now wondering how to just survive, that option always available to you. The new currency is identity not the size of the bank account. We can also get so busy condemning ourselves or playing victim (which is another version of latching on to the wrong identity) by what we don’t have (and maybe others do) and we neglect the true source of wealth. What is in us? Character can make money, but money cannot make character. You can lose all you have but character can rebuild. This is the anchor and source of freedom, but it takes work. It is far easier to figure out which shortcut to take to make more money than to let character form and do its work. Far easier to hope for a windfall and then buy into the lie we described in the last paragraph. Freedom does not mean you are absolved from responsibility. It takes discipline, perseverance, risking failure etc. A free person will show up even when they don’t know the end result. They will do what is right irrespective of what others think about them. Living in freedom doesn’t mean you don’t feel afraid or uncomfortable, but you take steps forward in spite of them. You have learnt to recognize the lie i.e. more money is what will make you feel ready or enough.
There is truly no financial freedom without this anchor. This is what allows money to be that tool and not a handcuff. This is when you do get to define what you want money to do for you rather than thinking it is the end objective. You even stop letting yourself get defined by financial challenges. What has happened has happened, but your character will keep it moving. In fact, you can now add resilience onto the menu. So, don’t wait for money to buy you a sense of freedom, long term security or adequacy. You already have it within. Use that to keep growing in character and money will follow in a way that doesn’t destroy you.
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