How money changed me

dollar dollar bills y'all (sorry)

Okay first off, I’m sorry about the title. I know it sounds like a bad Soundcloud album. I thought about it and it’s actually quite difficult to talk about money or wealth online without sounding really cringe. I will often qualify my articles with a personal story, a bit of jords-lore to help my (beautiful) readers understand how I relate to a certain issue.

What I wanted to begin this article with was something like I made a bunch of money in my early-mid 20s, it was a unique experience and therefore I have unique insights. That’s essentially what I wanted to say, but how does one go about that without sounding like an arrogant prick? How could I ever write that while keeping people engaged in my wholesome stories?

It’s quite a big jump from my last introduction about making my Nana’s biscuits, so instead of going through the specifics and feeling the uncomfortable sensation that comes with an unasked-for flex, I have decided to instead share with you this rambling monologue. It is, in itself, an observation about wealth. It is difficult to talk about success in general without being cringe.

Society has kind of picked two paths for people; you are either normal and complain about your lack of having the things you want and the time to do them, or you are a try hard perma-striver who is always preaching optimisation and manifesting success. There doesn’t really seem to be a norm set for people who are objectively successful but aren’t assholes about it. Why do we always highlight the assholes?

(asshole)

This extends further than just finance. People who need to sell themselves as being good at things all walk on the same thin ice. You are mindful? Probably a wanker. You’re an artist in your spare time? Probably just painting trash. You volunteer? Wow, performative. I think it’s a really weird time to be doing cool stuff and want to be talking about it in general, especially on the internet.

Outside of maybe joining a sports team, there is an omnipresent fear of doing things for fear of being perceived as a person doing weird things, like trying to reduce their screen time or be a better person. I feel myself judging someone who talks to me about a new diet they’re on, but where do I get off judging someone who is just doing their best?

The need for self-justification leads to a critique of any life lived other-than the way we live our own. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by people who are interested in what I am up to on a human level and not just trying to network.

I think maybe I’d kill my (sense of) self if I lived somewhere like Dubai or San Francisco where the common ground mostly consists of the want to make money and achieve financial success.

The entrance to Dubai’s Global Village (kms)

Anyways, oops, um. How did I get onto Dubai and suicide? It appears I went on a complete tangent. I do that sometimes. Now I suppose we can begin where I had intended: when I was a teenager. Like most kids, I used to be really annoying. But not just the scream-after-dropping-the-softserve-icecream-annoying, I was a kid who read Napoleon Hill while manifesting my future Audi R8 and corner office.

I remember in school we once had a career planning session where we had to fill out a form about what we wanted to do in the future. I think I wrote something like idk but I’m going to be rich and left the rest blank—take that education for trying to help me. I really showed them.

I actually found the document in an old Dropbox file. Here’s a snippet of my 17-year-old arrogance.

The same school made me write a letter to myself to be opened on the 10-year anniversary of my graduation. To my absolute horror, no seriously, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with this recollection.

I remember writing something to the level 9000 cringe of you should have a supercar and a million dollars by now or you’ve failed. It’s now not too far after my 10-year graduation anniversary and I’m happy to report that I didn’t attend so I can only hope that letter has been burned off the face of this Earth. I’m very thankful no one will ever know it’s ick-worthy content… until now I suppose, fuck.

This unfortunately lasted well into my early 20s. Surprisingly I think it actually lasted until I made a lot of money. I always felt like I had a point to prove, like there had to be more to me than just the job I was working. I would say things like ‘yeah I’m working in retail, but I also have this other project I started.’

A lot of it came down to my own insecurities, that I felt like I was less-than; or at least not the more-than I wanted. My dad always identified as something of an entrepreneur and he saw that same spirit in me. My siblings went the more traditional university route and were successful in their own right, but I felt like it was up to me to replicate my parent’s version of success. To be my own boss.

One of my favourite quotes from Epicurus is any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is the master of the whole world. We make ourselves unfree when we want for so much. I heard the other day that not wanting something is as good as having it. How wonderful is that?

If only I could have fully understood that concept. Well… I don’t want an Audi R8 anymore (I think the Porsche 911s are much nicer). Problem solved. I think.

It wasn’t until a few years after I made a lot of money very quickly (oh it is even uncomfortable to type) that I started to change in positive ways. First I needed to digest the impostor syndrome that happens when you go from taking the bus home from work to perusing watches you don’t need. After my very-stereotypical new money phase was over, I had some form of a renaissance. A rebirth. Jords 2.0.

(here is more jords 1.0 before you read ahead)

I started to read literature. I identified as someone who ‘wasn’t a reader’ or ‘read too slow’ for my entire life, until I had the time to read slow and enjoy it—this would naturally lead into becoming a better reader. I read and I learned, but other things were also beginning to change.

I re-examined a relationship I had been in for a long time, and eventually concluded it was time to move on. There is a cascade of empowerment that comes with not just accepting life as it is. Accepting the impermanence and our ability to make change.

I had a non-cringe self-worth. It was more than just the money, it was a general sense of success. Once I had achieved a certain calibre of success, the chip on my shoulder was removed. I didn’t need to be more-than, I was enough in my own mind. I could finally just be. Instead of feeling the need to tell people I am more than what I seem, I started to do the opposite.

My general sense-of-success was unfortunately pegged to finance, my insecurities were wrapped up in a bundle of capitalist stereotypes. But I believe there is hope to be found in this, that the same sense of success can be found in other things for those who are able to change their North Star.

What I really found out, was that I was living values that weren’t mine in order to succeed by someone else’s definition of it.

I found a lot of meaning and purpose through language learning. Taking on a very hard task and slowly chipping away at it each day, knowing that I am struggling today for a better future version of myself. There is purpose to be found in many places, and like every subjective truth it is only defined on an individual basis.

Once I had gone through this renaissance, I started to get really sad to think about the state of the world. How many wonderful people are trapped underneath their financial insecurities, even those who are successful by the definition of many. How different people would be if they didn’t need to worry about social mobility or financial insecurity.

Isaiah Berlin says “it is argued, very plausibly, that if a man is too poor to afford something on which there is no legal ban – a loaf of bread, a journey round the world, recourse to the law courts – he is as little free to have it as he would be if it were forbidden him by Law.”

One third of Americans (32%) don’t have an emergency savings fund and 29% say they can’t afford an unexpected expense over $400. The financial burden and lack of ‘freedom to’ suppresses inspiration and authenticity. We pair our fear of the worst with our want for things far outside our needs and we find ourselves lost in the capitalist sauce.

In order to find our own values, we need to strip back all that has been projected upon us. The grooves that society expects us to fall into. The hopes and dreams of our parents. There have been moments when I’ve had such visceral reactions to a comment or article only to realise I am just emulating the reaction of someone I grew up with. That I actually have no opinion or care about the subject.

I went the easy route, I managed to buy myself out of the problem. It’s a difficult way to do it, not because of the effort but because of the good luck one needs to come to their senses at the very moment they are most likely to lose it. For every jords who hit the sell button and started to read, there are a hundred other crypto-kids who moved to Dubai and started buying R8s (bad taste, who could ever want one of those?).

Comparison is the thief of joy, and I can personally attest that it scales with wealth. To want to be richer is a want that scales infinitely. There is no final resting place for this curse. The devil on your shoulder that reminds you of what could have been, will always be.

Another thing I noticed myself beginning to do was making time for others. I realised that my time is a privilege that others do not have. A gift to others is a gift to oneself. There are few things that fill my cup up more than helping my friends or family through times of need, or just times of would-be-nice. There are many studies that support this, but nothing reinforces it quite like doing.

Being financially secure, if handled well—can translate to being time rich. Being time rich is one of the true signs of happiness. Studies often show it is not the man with the most or least amount of money that is the happiest, it is the one in charge of his day. With our current levels of screen time, it is not hard to become richer in time should we wish. An hour spent helping a friend move is infinitely more gratifying than an hour on Instagram.

So often we see rich people talking about how wealth doesn’t matter, or how money doesn’t buy happiness. I think money is very important. I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter, it makes the world of difference to the people struggling out there. For families who don’t have $400 in case of an emergency, it could be the difference between freedom from and freedom to.

But for those living comfortably enough but wanting more, I think getting more money is just a way to slowly realise that the want doesn’t go away. We all have our own numbers in mind for what is enough, and most of us are wrong.

Money matters, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem; for some it can even accelerate it. Money allowed me to peel back the layers and question whether I was living authentically or just fitting into the well-worn social grooves of capitalism. I discovered myself, only after I allowed myself to. My shackles were broken but so was my view of the world.

A lifetime can be lived without realising that we have been living under the oppression of societal norms and marketing ploys. The first step is going through your values and discovering what values are actually yours. Know thyself.

E.M. Cioran referred to it as the feeling of being everything and the evidence of being nothing. This perfectly describes my youth. I wanted to be more and I solved that through having more. But, if not wanting something is the same as having it, then surely this equation can equally be solved by not wanting more.

Each of us has some evidence that we are important, we love and are loved. There is so much beauty on the other side of this realisation. That our success doesn’t define us, we define our success. It is free for those wise enough to capture it and expensive for those like me, but however we get there, it is worth the struggle.

In a world that wants you to feel less-than, be authentically you. That is enough.