I am not a fan of money in any shape or form. I pretty much have come to hate everything about it. Especially the way it interferes with what I'd rather do in life which means basically not having to care about who has it or who doesn't or how to get it or how not to - in other words, the way the cancer of money destroys everything in its wake. But it is in the end the only game in town so at some point you have to start adulting and either be happy living under the bridge or alter your opinion of the whole thing, a perception that allows for a better relationship with financial realities and responsibilities.
In our 2-person household, I realized the mental block comes from:
- Not having the skillset at all, or interest in that side of things (accounting, counting, budgeting, haggling, knowing re economics, caring re marketing, the marketplace, branding, etc)
- Being set up by crummy childhoods to accept and embrace being broke, general chaos, etc.
- How 2 relates to 1; accepting chaos makes one disinclined to overcome the learning curve to succeed at a financial mindset habit
So one way for us to improve our relationship to financial realities is to examine where exactly we, with our early upbringing, block our own prosperity.
So a list of ways my husband blocks prosperity:
- Taking every financial setback super seriously. There's a shortage this month to pull us into taking savings and it kills his whole mood and his whole outlook on the future ("This is it, we are RUINED")
- Hoarding and stockpiling food, also a tendency to refuse to consider cutting food costs as a rational strategy for saving.
- Being very ideologically Anti Capitalist. I mean I can basically see his point but at the end of the day you still got to navigate the world that (barely) exists. As well this belief sets up a determinism that blocks his idea of succeeding (because if he DOES succeed he instantly becomes one of the 'enemy').
- Always, especially in social type events/circumstances, only looking very short-sightedly at the bottom line. Thinking it's not worth it to volunteer, or just have social things, or invest in others' projects, through the inability to see that a longer-sighted view is that a big way others will invest in you/your stuff is if you've invested in them first.
Ways I block prosperity:
- Total opposite - I just don't care. If it's there, I want it spent. If there's no money, I do credit. If there's no credit, I'll figure it out.
- not valuing things and wanting to eliminate them. Or breaking/losing things of value.
- Being very careless generally as well about random expenses - coffee, wanting that Face Cream now, etc, and of course random snacks/foods/outings. Not planning or budgeting for daily or habitual expenses at all. But I don't have the food stockpiling thing. I may overspend at random stuff but I am very much against spending an extra $5 to $50 on dry goods to feed someone's weird Depression-era mentality. To me, both are equally criminal.
- Feeling resentful of the things a person has to do to 'make it' in the world not due to an ideological framework but just because, like our old friend Bartleby, "I'd prefer not to". So actively defiant of best marketing practices, or best economic practices, etc. I probably am not great at it but I do have a sense of the sorts of things one should do but the minute I think that I want to do the opposite because "why should I, anyway? Screw 'em. I'm not chasing the Almighty $"
- Being very ad hoc and possibly giving too much away in social contexts. Always wanting to go volunteer or do stuff for free because $ is icky to me. I'm very unwilling to take a hard line regarding limits on my time, and am always wanting to go out and spend $ at others' events, or buy people's stuff because I want it or to be a good egg or am relying too much on that idea that 'you invest in others they will invest in you' - often I end up investing a LOT in others' things but few return the favour.
- Total inability to believe that a better, more prosperous future or life is possible to me. Simply, unbelief. The way some people can't believe in God or whatnot. Or like I can't believe that I can wake up tomorrow and be 25 years old again. I simply do not believe it is possible on this earth for me to live an existence where the toxic cancer of money is not eating away at my vitality.
There are obviously practical considerations but, on a more spiritual plane, these are the biggest blockages to a prosperous life I see operating in our lives. I would like 2019 to be about evolving past these things that I have listed and having a better $ future. Not sure how to accomplish that but a list like this sheds light on the challenges ahead.
Editor's Note: This photo was taken in Hot Springs, NC
