Many people believe that money can solve all of their problems and that having no money is the source of their worries. Some people are just the opposite and think that money is the source of all evils and by having more of it only makes you prone to be afflicted by issues of even greater scale. What I believe is that money alone is not capable of having any kind of effect on you by itself. It is merely an object that enables you to do some things. The greater the amount, the more routes that can be opened by it for you to navigate and experience upon. While it is enabling you to do somethings, whether they be good or bad, it certainly never influences you to choose between any one of them. That choice and by extension its responsibility solely lies on you. What decides which route you take is dependent on a lot of things like your moral values, your current circumstances etc. But, ultimately they can all be simplified to two things:
- the things you need in life,
- and the things you want in life.
Simply put, all the things that you need are all the things that are necessary for you to live. And all the things that you think you need in order to live “properly” constitute the things you want in life. You cannot live without acquiring the things that you genuinely need but you can do so without ever having the things that you want. For example, it is your need to eat food to continue functioning but you really only want to eat your favourite food. But this is not an article about asceticism as sometimes the things you want coincide with the things you need as well. This is especially true when you have lesser amount of wealth as a person who does not have enough money to buy food would want to buy food as this is his need as well but as you increase the amount of wealth that the same person has, he would want to eat at his favourite restaurant daily and maybe even try cuisines from different parts of the world. What changed with money is the access the person had and the things he wanted increased linearly with that as well. However, his needs are still the same. In fact, I would even suggest that almost all of the things that we want stem from some kind of our need which often gets blown to ridiculous proportions by our desire to chase something better and better. The more you let yourself be controlled by the things you want, the more you will find yourself changing from who you originally were. This also makes you liable to encounter more of the evils that people often associate with money. That being said, the more you let yourself be driven by only the things you need, the more you will find it hard to be happy in life as you will be doing the bar minimum. So both of these approaches do not give us a happy ending here, what should be done?
Like most other things, the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle of the two. You have to find the right balance between the two things to achieve the best possible outcome i.e. not only being happy in life by doing the things that you want but also be safe from the averse effects that come with it. The reason I recommend people to find a balance between the two will become more apparent when we also look at the pros and cons of both approaches side-by-side. By allowing yourself to only live for all the things that you need, you are allowing yourself to never work your hardest or to realize your full potential. Not only does this limit the success you will have(as you do not chase after it due to a lack of motivation) but you also never truly become excited by anything as well. This is great to find contentment in life but can you really be content when you are not working your hardest or when you do not know fully what you are capable of?
On the other hand we have the approach to follow the things that we want. While this approach has the obvious pitfall where the things we want continuously keep expanding until we ourselves become consumed by it, it also has a benefit. And that benefit is the success it brings with it. When you do want something, you always have to work hard to get it. As long as something that you want is optimally challenging, you will work relentlessly and gradually achieve what you set out to do. in fact, only when the things that you want become so grand that you convince yourself to achieve it by means other than working hard do we encounter the aforementioned pitfall. This pitfall can wither be falling into evil ways or becoming broke.
Ideally, what you would want is to first work to secure all the things that you need and then work towards achieving the things you want as well. The only difference would be to associate all the things that you want with your need from which this desire originated from. As long as you are able to find that base need for whatever particular thing that you may want at any moment, and let it guide you, you will never allow yourself to choose the easy way out. This way, you will work your hardest to realize your full potential and you will also be excited by the prospect of getting the things that you want. All the while avoiding the dire risks that might have come with it otherwise. This may sound simple but all good things should be kept simple. You can try this next whenever you want something and I am sure you will feel satisfaction rather than any negative emotion whatsoever. Good luck!
