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Sun05192013

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Back You are here: Home Columnists Columnists Jagjit Singh What is your belief about money?

What is your belief about money?

A poor person walking on a street has no fear in his mind of loosing something which in real sense he does not possess i.e. money. Even during night he is the same person who would get the best of sleep, as he is least bothered about any thief entering his house to steal something valuable. Now take the opposite case.

You have sizeable money in your pocket and had to travel to a distant place. What kind of feelings do you get? A feeling of relief or fear, I am sure most of us would tick “fear”. Going further, on a particular day if for any reason you had to store more money in your house than usual, do you get normal sleep like any other day or the mere presence of money in your house disturbs your peace of mind and ultimately the sleep.

If one takes the above two situations on its face value, then one can instantly draw a conclusion that “Money is invariably a burden”. If we take money as a burden then the moot question remains, as to why human being is so much mad about money. Currently, money has become such a dominating force in our life that we can’t afford to ignore it.

If we can’t afford to ignore the money in our life, then for sure money must be having some virtues which can lessen our burden rather than increase. This is where the confusion enters. On one side I am advocating that the mere presence of money in our purse or house can add to our burden or worry, while on other hand I am referring to some unknown virtues of money which can reduce the same burden/worry and make our life easy. So let us study some notable virtues of money as follows:

(a) medium of exchange, (b) widely accepted, (c) convenience – makes life easy, (d) relatively scarce – that is how we run behind it, (e) easy to store, (f) relatively imperishable, and lastly (g) easy divisible. So if one can use these virtues of money positively which again must be morally and ethically correct, then I can assure you that money will never be a burden or a cause for worry.

Money can be anything as we declare it to be - a tool in your hands, power in your pocket, and a ticket to freedom, take your pick- it is what you make of it. If you make it into ‘the root of all evil’ (which we do by projecting), you’ll look for evil everywhere you think money is. Yes, there are a lot of people out there who are willing to do bad things for money - the question we’re concerned here is what does such perspective mean to you?

Choosing a good relationship to your money is important because your relationship to a thing determines how you experience it. If you think about it, in this sense perception is everything. Your reality is actually the sum of your perception, which means when any of us talk about money, what we’re really talking about is our experience of it? Is money actually dirty/clean/wonderful/ powerful/honorable/wicked?

No, that’s a quality of your experience of it, not the quality of money itself. Money is just a thing, inanimate. So if you think money as a burden, it will become a burden to you, even if you manage to become wealthy. You’ll end up working hard to keep it, rather than finding ways for it to maintain itself and grow by itself, because if you ‘know’ that it is a burden, you won’t look for ways for your money to be easy.

In your mindset, having your money a burden will be ‘normal’, and you will eventually get tired of this. If you really believe that your money is a burden, you’ll find ways to get rid of it, when really it’s not the money that’s the burden, it’s your belief that money is heavy that is the cause of the burden. Money isn’t the cause or the solution; it’s the product of your inner game. Your beliefs are what create your perspective.

It’s your belief, not your net worth that is in control here. Recently I read somewhere that – If you got out of bed this morning and went to work because you wanted to, you are in control of money. On the other hand, if you got out of bed this morning because you had to, money is in control of you. Obviously, money doesn’t have to be a burden- if it works for you, it can lighten your burdens.

If you invest and create passive income streams, your money can create ease and abundance in life. If you believe that it can be a tool to accomplish what you want, you will find ways for it to do that - if you do not, you won’t. Again, this myth is a powerful and self fulfilling thing. There are many people in this world, who despite having lots of money, land up in jail for rest of their life, while on other hand there are several human beings who live a quite satisfying & self-fulfilling life within the limited means they have.

The basic difference between these two groups is where the one is mad about money which turns into a burden, while the other category uses money as a means to fulfil their day-to-day needs and not wants. Now I leave upon you to decide, whether you want to treat your money as a burden or a means to lessen your burdens in life - the choice is yours!!!!

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