We’ve just ushered in 2009. We’ve got electric cars, skyscrapers and the ability to urinate while floating around in outer space. I mean…we’re like crazy techno freaks now.
So it struck me as sort of odd the other day when someone said to me, straight to my face, while looking in my eyes, “Money hates me and avoids me.”
I laughed hysterically for a while until I realized the person wasn’t laughing along with me and was actually quite serious. So I had to cover up and say, “Oh! Ahem…excuse me…that’s, uh…my allergies.”
“Allergies make you laugh at people?”
“Uh…it’s a…pollen…thing.”
While choking back more laughter, I had to struggle my wits around the statement.
“Money avoids me.”
Despite our ability to split atoms and walk on the moon, there’s still this odd voodoo/mojo/magic/aura/mumbo-jumbo thingy about money and how it comes and goes. Or fails to do so, for the less fortunate.
Well, I took it upon myself to do some ultra-scientific tests about money, how it works and how it gets from one place to the other. Preferably your hand to my wallet.
The Truth About Money
Seriously now. As we all embark (or wish to) upon business and life, the first thing we need to do when it comes to making money is banish the thought that it’s not ours, that it somehow avoids us and that we don’t deserve it.
People are afraid to even dream about hoping to commence upon considering the possibility that they may, someday, if the stars align, start a business. They worry, first, that they may fail. That worry is at partially based on a false idea that money is somehow self-motivated and out of one’s control. Like money is out there and just chooses to grace Company A with profits and inversely runs screaming from Company B willy nilly, nothing we can do about it.
Ain’t so. My very scientific researches uncovered the truth about money and I’d like to share them with you now:
- Money has no mind, no thoughts and no personality.
- Money doesn’t know your name or where you live.
- Money doesn’t know if you work 1 hour a week or 14 hours a day. Nor does it care in the least.
- Money is not drawn to people with strong personalities.
- Money isn’t offended if you smell like rotten armpit.
- Money does not avoid people who wear excessive plaid.
- Money doesn’t have a favorite color, but if it did I bet it would be “off-magenta.”
- Money doesn’t desire to drive a nice car or have slumber parties with its friends.
- When it gets up in the morning and thinks about what it wants to do today, it has absolutely no fucking clue.
Do you get what I’m saying here?
Money is dead. It’s paper. It’s a thing, with no more mind or personality than a brick or your left knee. (For people who actually do keep their personality in their left knee, my apologies.)
Nobody deserves money more than another and nobody is more entitled to it than you are. Money is created and earned by much less complicated means than all of our strange ideas would suggest.
“Well, what about me?” you ask. “I’ve been working hard for 20 years and I’ve got about six nickels to rub together. Money avoids me like the plague.”
Bummer, and I understand. I’ve been there too. But money is NOT avoiding you because money can’t avoid anything. Avoidance assumes a power of choice, and money’s ability to make a decision ranks somewhere between that of cardboard and a chicken nugget.
If you currently have no money, it means you haven’t earned, haven’t saved or both.
So let’s be done with these frilly other-worldly explanations. Money is not based on magic, karma, your facial features, childhood memories, freckles, height, luck, beneficent blessings from The Great Creator or leprechauns.
Okay…maybe leprechauns. I’m still looking into this one.
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22 June 2009 @ 2pm
You know, you sort of caught me in a lie with this one. I’m guilty of saying “I don’t make much money” a lot. It’s sort of a sad mantra of mine.
But I read your post and did some thinking and you know what? The times I usually say that are when I’m being really lazy. And of course laziness isn’t going to bring in new money or even create potential for new money.
Thanks for the reminder. It wasn’t a pleasant one, but…guess it wasn’t meant to be.
23 June 2009 @ 11am
Well, this can be a hard lesson for people:
If you currently have no money, it means you haven’t earned, haven’t saved or both.
Indeed, I was working with a client a couple of weekends ago (training waitstaff) and was outside for some “fresh air” when one of the dishwashers mentioned how far his paycheck was going (or rather, wasn’t going). Then he stopped, got a very thoughtful look on his face and said, “Not too bad though, I guess, for a guy without any skills.”
Huh. Think about that. Let’s add to the list – if you have no money it means that you haven’t prepared yourself to become a producer of something, or a provider of a service, that people want to buy.
And that, my dear friend, is your own fault.
23 June 2009 @ 2pm
@Stephen -
So true, so true. When you think about why you’re not earning, it opens a huge can of worms that happens to be really hard to hide from. I mean, your fellow who said he’s a guy without any skills, man…that’s a hardcore look at it. And a lot of people are in that boat.
When I do personal consulting, probably one of the most common things I hear is, “Jeez, if I’d started on this a year ago, I’d already be making money at it. Why’d it take me so long?”
Old Chinese proverb: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
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