Why do I really want financial abundance for you?!
“Money can’t buy you happiness” you’ve all heard that a millions times, no doubt. It’s a cliché at this point. And while on a surface-level, literalist interpretation of that phrase it may be true; there is so much more to it than that!
In this blog I want to really explore that phrase, it’s prolific use and why I want to make as many people as I can financially abundant, in order to promote greater joy and purpose on a global scale!
Firstly let me welcome you all. Thank you for stopping by to check out my blog. If you’re new here, I produce these three times a week. My aim is to give you as much free information as I can, enabling you to see the areas of your life that need work in order to achieve a desired outcome. You all have it within you to be whatever you want to be (another cliché perhaps, but true nevertheless).
“Money can’t buy you happiness” – unpacked
OK so let’s start with this then: what’s it really saying? Well on a very literal level, it is not possible to commodify and sell ‘happiness’. It’s a feeling and very personal to each and every one of us, so no: you can’t add ‘happiness’ to your Amazon basket and hit ‘buy now’.
That’s one aspect of it. The other being that simply by accruing wealth, you are not automatically or proportionally accruing happiness. Fair enough – that is true too I suppose.
Also: money is not sentient, so it can not in and of itself go out to the store and bring back a six pack of ‘happiness’. Fair, but not exactly useful. Neither can my cat and he brings me lots of happiness (and mice, but that’s a different story).
So the trouble with this phrase is that it requires a literal interpretation, while relying on subjective terminology, and it can be dismissed equally be reversing the prism through which we view it.
No “money can’t buy you happiness” in and of itself.
It can neither act, nor be correlated with an emotion directly. The missing component of course is…drum roll…you!! It such a painful omission when people say this. No: money can’t buy me happiness, but I can!!
Money is simply a medium of exchange. How it is obtained and what is exchanged for are not up to it. In fact: it’s up to nobody but the two consenting parties, involved in any given transaction. In fact I would wager that most transactions bring a degree of happiness to both parties, otherwise they wouldn’t engage in it would they?!
Think about it: most of the time, when you buy something, it’s to save you time. If it’s your groceries (for example) – the supermarket is saving you the time of having to go out, educate yourself and make all of the things you need for the week to feed yourself. Leaving you more time to enjoy with the family, or whatever else it is that you’d care to do.
Even in that most basic of scenarios – money may not have ‘bought’ you happiness directly, but it did afford it to you by giving you back your time.
There’s a guy who set out to see how long and how much it would cost, to make a chicken sandwich completely from scratch (video below). It turns out it cost $1,500 and six months! Bearing in mind that he grew/reared the ingredients and even boiled off sea water to get salt.
So when you buy a chicken sandwich on your lunch break for %5 or whatever, think how much time and how many resources that has saved you! In this example, it also saves you having to learn how to kill a chicken – an act that it could be argued, brings you greater happiness not having to commit.
You get my point by now though – happiness and money are not mutually exclusive.
Really what the phrase “money can’t buy you happiness” is about, is the emotional charge that we bring to it as human beings. And that’s on us! It’s just a means of exchange, like I said, and all too often we confuse what it says about us personally.
We walk around in clothes, where jewellery and drive cars that (supposedly) speak to our ‘station’ in life. But do they? Only if we let them! We might think that people will see us a certain way when we’re driving our Porsche or whatever, but do they? I mean odds are: they see the car and don’t give two figs about who’s in it. Do you when you see a fancy car? And even if you do, do you find the owner and tell them they hold a specific station in life? And if you did that even; would they care?
It’s all about what you bring to it. Yes, buy the fancy schmancy stuff – but do it for you! Do it to evoke feelings of joy within you. Or take the trip to see a long lost relative, help fund a school in Africa or give to a local charity; whatever brings you pleasure.
“Money is the route of all evil”
OK I don’t want to dwell on this one in anywhere near as much detail as “money can’t buy you happiness” but it is worth talking about.
I had a friend who I had started some join venture, business stuff with. Long story short: she wound up telling me that she couldn’t work with me as she didn’t feel aligned with my message of being “all about the money.”
Suffice it so say: she had me wrong, but it highlighted a serious gap in her thinking and others like her. As I said in my recent podcast with Lee Davy: “you’ve got to be in service, to be of service!” My encouragement to everyone, to get to a space of financial abundance, is not so that we can all roll around in Ferraris!
I want to, first and foremost; elevate people out of a state of stress that comes with lack!
So many people in the world are held back from greatness, living every day with a sense of purpose and joy; simply because they live under a cloud of financial stress! It governs every decision, placing limits on everything they do. That’s not living!
This strange moral argument that we should all fall on our swords, giving whatever we can to those in need before we feed ourselves, is crazy to me. I want to be of maximum service to the maximum number of people possible. To do that I need resources. Not only that, but I need to be the fullest version of myself that I can be.
Now this isn’t just about money. It’s about having the financial resources that will afford me the spare time to exercise, for example. So that I am in the best physical health I can be, and therefore have the endurance needed to meet my schedule. I need enough sleep and quality food, health care and so on. All of this facilitates me doing what I do best, what I love to do and what yes: brings me happiness.
“But Daniel – spiritual guides and gurus don’t need money in order to be of service and find fulfilment in their lives. They also have everything that they need. Stop being so shallow and open your mind!”
Yeah sure, there are those that find their happy place up a mountain, meditating and worshiping the sky, while the universe supports them in manifesting all they need. Fair enough! Good for them. They still exchanged something for it.
Whether you think it’s all just woo-woo nonsense, or truly believe as I do, that you can manifest all you need from the universe; there is still an exchange that takes place. In the guru’s case, it’s the years spent studying and practicing their spirituality, in order to harness their relationship to reality that gave them that ability.
It’s also somewhat fatuous to suggest that these people simply meditate their message into existence. The whole reason you know about them and their teachings in the first place, is because they wrote a book, took out Facebook ads, started a podcast etc… They found a way to condense it and, if not outright sell it, exchange it with you for something.
Money is simply the easiest way we’ve devised as a species, to exchange value between ourselves. Some people do evil with money, some people do good things with it. I say – let’s take the emotional charge off money and see it for what it is: a medium of exchange, that facilitates more choice.
That’s it.
No – money can’t buy you happiness, but it absolutely can facilitate it.
Thank you so much for reading this blog, from the bottom of my heart! If you enjoyed this, I produce regular Do It With Dan blogs, podcasts and videos. I have three books published now: Stepping Beyond Intention, The Dreamer’s Manifesto and From Time-to-Time (a really great book on time mastery). All of these are here to serve you and make you part of the journey as well.
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