Lately, I’ve been seeing the phrase “your relationship with money” all over the place. What is that?
Clarification is required.
How can you have a relationship with money? It will never remember your birthday, tuck you in at night, check on you to see how you’re doing, worry about your health, or care about your feelings. Money is an inanimate object without feelings towards you. The fact that you have feelings for money is not the same as you have having a relationship with it.
If you have feelings for a movie star or sports figure whom you’ve never met, it doesn’t mean you’re in a relationship with that person. You’re in even less than a relationship with money than with a famous person because there’s a teeny, tiny chance that the Fates may smile on you, let you meet your heart’s desire, and that s/he becomes your friend/partner/spouse/boss/mentor.
Believe me when I say that money will never be any of those people to you or for you.
Money is merely a tool – that is all.
Much like a hammer or fire or a fork, money can be used to help you achieve your life’s goals, ambitions, and dreams. Money does not have feelings towards you, and it never ever will.
Take your birthday, for instance. Money allows you to buy candles for the cake. Money is useful if you want to buy yourself a present. Money is spectacularly proficient at assisting you to throw yourself a birthday party. However, money will never take the initiative to plan a birthday party for you or take the care of all the little details that will make your birthday special. The details, the organization, the planning – those all have to be done by a human being in your life.
Your parents, your friends, your boss, your elderly next neighbour down the street, your barista – these are people with whom you can have a relationship. Good or bad, your interactions with these people will create memories for both of you. Your shared experiences will be the foundation of your relationship with other people. You can influence whether those interactions are friendly or forgettable, frosty or fabulous.
No matter how you use money, the fundamental nature of your use of money is that of a human being using a tool to achieve a purpose. It is akin to you using a knife to butter toast. It is not a relationship, no matter how many times you use that particular tool.
Though we imbue it with many attributes and power, never forget that money isn’t a person. It has no loyalty towards you. It will never love you, never care about you, never think about you for one second. When you die, money will neither remember nor mourn your passing. Money is an inanimate object without feelings, reason, or morals.
Make no mistake. I am perfectly aware that money is extremely useful when it comes to buying things. However, money will never – not even in a million years – satisfy your emotional need for connection with another human being.
The high that comes with spending money on stuff never lasts because it doesn’t satisfy what people really want. They want the joy of connecting to someone else, so they buy the golf clubs or the sweater or the car or the house. What they really want is to feel heard, loved, and appreciated by special people in their lives.
You cannot have a relationship with money. This is why I’m so very perplexed by this phrase “your relationship with money.” You don’t have a relationship with money – it’s impossible. You have more of a connection with someone whom you’ve never met on the other side of the world that you do with money. You know what you have in common with the other-side-of-the-world-stranger? You’re both living on planet Earth and you share a common interest in ensuring that climate change doesn’t destroy the planet.
See? Money is not a person. That means it cannot relate to you. It also means that there’s no relationship.
Money can be used to build relationships.
You can use money to build relationships with people. If you want to do something nice for your co-workers, you can use money to buy the ingredients to bake for your colleagues or to bring in a box of pastries for all to enjoy. If you want to spend more time with your friends, you can use money to host potlucks at your house, to attend concerts with them, or to partake in a once-a-month-no-matter-what dinner date. If you want to improve your relationship with your family, you can use money to do those things that you know will bring the most joy and create the best memories for your kin.
Do you understand what I’m trying to say?
Money is useful for assisting you to achieve some of the relationship goals that you may have for relationships with the people in real life. Allow me to be clear. Money won’t solve all relationship problems, but it can certainly facilitate the creation of experiences & memories that you wish to share with those who are close to your heart. Do you want to take a vacation with friends? Attend a concert with a sibling? Try a new restaurant with a fellow foodie? Money can help you do all of those things.
Money is a tool that permits you to create experiences with other human beings. Those shared experiences are the foundation of your relationships, whether positive or negative. Money has no feelings about those interactions one way or another, which means money is not relating to you. It is simply a tool that you can use to achieve what you want.
You can have as many relationships as your energy and time will allow. But I’m here to tell you that you simply cannot have a relationship with money.