What Am I Asking Money to Do?

I was driving yesterday and started wondering what money is actually for.

A vehicle for exchange. Fine. It buys goods and services.

But what am I asking those goods and services to give me?

Food. Water. Somewhere to live. Help when my health goes wrong.

Fairly clear jobs. Money is useful here.

It also buys choices. More control over my time. The ability to say no. Some room to do what I actually want.

I think that’s what I want money for: meeting my needs and giving me more freedom.

Then, somewhere along the way, I give it another job.

Prove that I’m enough.

That’s where it gets dangerous.

Because the question starts as “what do I need?” and becomes “what would make me feel accepted?”

How much would make me respectable? Successful? Someone worth listening to?

The money is still a number. But I’m asking the number to settle a feeling about myself.

And that feeling has other people in it.

Or at least my idea of what other people think.

Which makes the circle interesting.

What’s the circle, and what do they value?

If the people whose approval I want place a lot of weight on money, then of course more money starts to feel necessary. It seems to be buying something I need: belonging.

But I don’t need an enormous group of people to feel connected.

And there are different walks of life. Different things people admire. Different ways of being together.

Maybe part of wanting more money is wanting to qualify for a particular room.

It seems worth checking whether I even like the room.

Then there’s desire itself.

I’ve been asking how to afford what I want without asking much about the wanting.

Naval puts it like this: “Desire’s a contract you make to be unhappy until you get what you want.” Naval

That catches something.

I decide I need a thing, and suddenly life without it feels insufficient. The thing hasn’t changed. I’ve added a condition to being okay.

If some of those conditions loosen, maybe I need less money.

And maybe there’s another job I’m giving it: make up for the day.

Buy some excitement. Some relief. Something to look forward to.

What if the day itself gets my juices flowing?

If I’m making things I want to make, interested in what I’m doing, enjoying the ordinary hours, perhaps there’s less I need a purchase to repair.

The money I think I need might depend partly on how much I enjoy the life I’m already living.

There’s still something deeper underneath this for me, though.

Freedom.

Money can make some external things easier. Having room to choose matters. Being constantly forced into things by a lack of money is a real limitation.

But I can also have choices and feel trapped.

I can have time and spend it worrying about whether I’m doing enough. Have money and keep measuring myself against someone with more.

The outside gets easier while the mind carries on torturing itself.

That’s the freedom I’m more interested in: some release from the prison the mind keeps making.

So much of what runs through it seems borrowed. Ideas about success. What I should want. What makes a life count.

They arrive in my own voice, which makes them quite convincing.

Then I go looking for money to satisfy them.

There doesn’t need to be a dramatic choice between making money and becoming a monk.

I can make the outside easier and loosen some of the inside at the same time.

More choices would help. Fewer conditions on being okay would help too.

Money is a door for freedom.

I want to be clearer about where that door actually leads.

What would this money let me do? What pressure would it remove? What part of my life would become easier?

Am I asking it to pay for something I want, prove that I’m enough, or give me a break from days I don’t like?

Those are different jobs.

I want the needs covered and room to choose.

I also want to enjoy an ordinary Tuesday without having to buy something to rescue it.