Escape Plans Unlimited

Toilet Paper On a Desert Island

Lately, money, and the lack of it, seems to have driven many people completely crazy. I admit, many of my own minutes have passed in fear and agony over needing more money.

Before going any further in this discussion, I offer the following meditation:

Picture yourself alone on this desert island:

Your Own Private Island

Imagine the situation in as much detail as you can muster. Feel the sun on your skin. Feel the sand between your toes. Listen to the wind and to the waves crashing and rolling up the shore. See the glimmer of sunlight on the water. Taste the salty sea air. Smell your musty old clothes. Feel the loneliness of ending up stranded and alone.

Next, imagine that you have the giant bag of cash, pictured above. You spent so much time going after money, and you finally got it. You found yourself a giant bag of cash. Never mind that you forgot about your friends. You forgot about all the things that used to excite you. You had to be responsible if you wanted to get the real reward, the only reward worth living for: $$$$$$$$. Now you have it.

What can you do with a giant bag of cash on a desert island?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I use money everyday. It can be a very useful tool in human interactions. In fact, it is one of the most useful tools for controlling human behavior. Without it, people would not be able to afford their cable TV bill. Where would humanity be without its most evolutionary tool of all time, cable TV? That is a topic for future exploration….

Another meditation to try:

Find a baby or a very young child. Offer the baby or young child a million dollars. Even better, take out a few ones and offer them to the baby. Be careful not to let the baby put the money in its mouth. It might choke. In fact, try eating some of the money yourself. Not very tasty, eh?

So, if life is not really about money, and yet, money is a very useful tool at this moment in human society, how can a person deal with money without going completely insane with fear over not having enough of it?

One option is to prioritize it. See where money is useful. See how the idea of money controls you.

An exercise: Write “Money” on the top of a piece of paper. Below it, write everything that comes to mind. There are no right or wrong answers. Just write. To help you get writing, you might also address the question, “what does money mean?”

After you get that list going, take a look at all the associations you have to money. You might discover there are some states of experience that you are after. While money proves useful in getting other people and businesses to do things and provide products for consumption, the thing itself has no value at all, except in terms of exchange.

What happens when the money no longer has any value? What happens when you have absolutely no money? Can you still enjoy your life? Can you still find value? Can humans still find ways to interact that they enjoy together?

Here is a key: Life never was, and never will be, all about money. This is a lie in some respects. Money will most certainly allow you to travel the world, and to buy all kinds of things that will give you temporary happiness.

The point here is to determine what you want the money for. If you have dreams that money will help you to fulfill, shift your efforts and your awareness toward achieving the dreams you want to experience. There are so many ways to achieve and pursue your dreams. Money is but one way. Most people spend so much time, effort, and worry about money that it becomes a Gawd of sorts. Once money has taken up Gawd status in your life, your dreams become secondary.

Once this occurs, you serve money, instead of money serving you. Money is not evil. People just convince themselves that money is evil because people tend to do evil things when they have made money their master. By following your excitement and your dreams, you will get the money you need to achieve them. You will have all the energy you need to work toward your dreams. When you work only for money, you will always have a lack of energy, and you will never achieve the experiences you really want.

If life is not about money, what is it about?

Midnight Dreams

Leave a comment with your thoughts. Next, I will explore part two of three of this money experiment. Money is a fine tool, but a horrible master. Who is the Master who makes the money green?

The false self that dies today is the one who thought it had to have definite opinions about money as good, bad, ugly, or otherwise.

Love, wildness, chaos….

-GTD