Me and Money
What can I say about money other than I want more than I have. That doesn’t exactly make me unique - that just makes me like 99.999999% of people. My relationship with money has always been a very responsible one but also a very disappointing one. I’ve never spent more than I had, yet I’ve always wanted to have more. When you’re younger though, money usually comes free with an allowance, or you “earn” it by doing chores. Usually at this stage in life, you can’t make money since you’re under a certain age.
Who Cares About Green Paper?
The only thing I basically knew about money at the point when my parents were married and I was really young is that my parents just gave it to me to buy school lunches and/or get ice cream after school was over. Other than that, it was all up to my parents for everything else. At that young of an age you’re not really supposed to be buying anything but just hoping that your parents get it for you because they have the car so they take you around and they get you the things you need/want. That means that when you’re under 18 your relationship with money is very abstract and it’s not a daily, tangible reality for you. In other words, you know that you need it when you’re older but how you make it is a complete mystery.
Living in The Material World
The most shocking thing I learned about money came from my dad. He told me that there is something called rent and you have to pay money for it or else you couldn’t even live in a home. Although to most people this is a no brainer, when we are kids we are so innocent that we think everyone deserves shelter and a roof over their head no matter how much money they may or may not have. I started to hate thinking about money, especially when it was the subject my parents were arguing about. Eventually, their arguments led to a divorce but it wasn’t the main reason for it - just one of many.
Stranded At Sea
When I lived up in the hills of Bel Air (with my grandparents), sometimes my grandpa would give me the occasional one hundred dollar bill and I was excited (who wouldn’t be?) but then that excitement turned into apathy. What was I going to do with that money when I didn’t have a car to go down to any store and didn’t even have internet access to buy anything online? That’s when you realize that money is a means to an end and not an end in and of itself. To take another example, imagine that you owned a ship with billions of dollars on it and the engine broke in the middle of the ocean and no one came to your rescue. Essentially, all that money on it is meaningless. That being said, when I was younger and I got money as a gift from the older people in my life I really didn’t care because I had no where to spend it (and that money I was given would usually end up with my parents anyway).
Learning the Value of Money
It wasn’t until 10th grade (as I mentioned in my previous post) that I got a job at Speednews where I collated papers so it was my first experience of actually earning money instead of it just being handed to me. For the first time, money actually had value to me. I also opened up a bank account in 10th grade. At a younger age (either in elementary or middle school) I thought the idea of a bank account was kind of dumb because I figured you could just keep the money at home or in your pocket. That was until I realized that something bad could happen to your house (flood, fire etc.) or a thief could come and steal it. As long as the bank wasn’t taking a cut I was fine with it. That’s when I started accumulating my money for the future.
Money Voodoo
In high school I still didn’t understand some things about money. Some things even seemed like magic to me. Credit cards were one of them. I didn’t understand how you could swipe a piece of plastic into a machine and get a product or service for it. To this day investing seems like legalized gambling to me but I’m sure it’s because I don’t understand all the intricacies of it. It wasn’t until my senior year of highschool I understood how credit cards worked and how it was all linked to the money that you made and what it means to handle a credit card responsibly (paying your balance on time) or irresponsibly (paying the bare minimum and having to deal with interest.)
Money Philosophy
I would also find it funny when people would say we should appreciate places like schools because taxpayer money is paying for it and we don’t have to pay for it. I think that’s one of the worst arguments that anyone can make because jails are also supported by taxpayer dollars but I’m pretty sure the criminals don’t want to be there (although they deserve to be there). If someone wants me to do something or wear something and I’m really not that into, in that case they can pay for it themselves. On the other hand if someone pays to have someone else beat me up, I sure as hell am not going to appreciate that and middle school sure felt like an emotional and psychological beatdown. What I mainly spend money on though are necessities (of course) and things that genuinely make me feel happy. Something like middle school, which forces people to conform, causes stress and misery, and doesn’t adequately prepare kids for the future, shouldn’t be paid for by society. However, university is even worse than that. The expectation there is that YOU pay for your own stress and unhappiness. The good news was that with Santa Monica College the financial aid I got was enough to pay for classes and for me to pocket the money so at least I got some extra money as compensation for the little bit of misery I experienced there, especially considering that I’m not an academically oriented person. To recap, if it’s a miserable feeling then you are earning the money but if it’s a feeling of joy and happiness you should be paying. However, this in and of itself is a very pedestrian way of looking at money. Now the more advanced way is this: if you are providing some sort of value to people whether it’s through art, comedy, acting, and/or a special skill you are teaching or simply sharing your message then you hit the jackpot. That jackpot is loving what you do and making money for it at the same time. The education system misses the mark on this and that’s why we have so many people in society with a negative attitude towards money and those who are successful.
If Life had Cheat Codes
I will leave you all with this. If I had a special button and tomorrow I had an infinite amount of money here is what I would do. I’d mostly spend it on things with intrinsic value and hardly spend anything on material things with no intrinsic value. My dad is a jeweler and I think his job is very boring. I for one never enjoyed buying things that just sat there to look pretty. I personally couldn’t care less about antiques, designer clothing, jewelry, and/or fancy cars. What I care about the most are things that take you places, tell stories and give you fun and exciting experiences. These things include video games, vacations, movies, aircrafts, and drones. I’d probably spend the money to visit every major city, go to their science centers, fly over those cities in a helicopter and take rides in jets and fly drones. All these things take you places and give you experiences and that’s what I value the most in life. I could never stand my father's job of selling a bunch of shiny rocks that didn’t even move or do anything and were only there to look pretty. I couldn’t care less about that. I remember the times when me my mother and father went to another country like Canada and Mexico and how I loved staring out the plane's window and visiting new places I’ve never seen before. I honestly thought those were the best days of my life (I was wrong). When I got into university and I was independent enough to do these things myself, I loved being on my own in a new city and just exploring the place because I felt like a character in a video game whose objective was to explore and see as much as I could. So if I had cheat codes in life that’s what I’d want my life to be all about - exploring and having incredible adventures around the world plus talking to smart people like scientists and engineers and asking them what they plan on developing for making life more enjoyable and exciting. I would use my money to fund their endeavors and buy their amazing products. In short, money is not the root of all evil but feeling miserable and unhappy with a life unlived definitely is.