XXXI. The Rational Way to Handle Money
It’s a tool.
"Look at the number of things we buy because others have bought them or because they're in most people's houses. One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention." — Seneca
The story below is about The Miser from Aesop’s Fables.
A Miser had buried his gold in a secret place in his garden.
Every day he went to the spot, dug up the treasure and counted it piece by piece to make sure it was all there.
He made so many trips that a Thief, who had been observing him, guessed what it was the Miser had hidden, and one night quietly dug up the treasure and made off with it.
When the Miser discovered his loss, he was overcome with grief and despair.
He groaned and cried and tore his hair.
A passerby heard his cries and asked what had happened.
"My gold! O my gold!" cried the Miser, wildly, "someone has robbed me!"
"Your gold! There in that hole? Why did you put it there? Why did you not keep it in the house where you could easily get it when you had to buy things?"
"Buy!" screamed the Miser angrily.
"Why, I never touched the gold. I couldn't think of spending any of it."
The stranger picked up a large stone and threw it into the hole.
"If that is the case," he said, "cover up that stone. It is worth just as much to you as the treasure you lost!"
The best way to handle money isn't to save every penny and deny ourselves fun and life-enhancing utilities.
Ascetism isn’t an ideal to live by.
The other extreme is to luxuriate in wild profligation, whose result is living with the anxiety of poverty, debt, and unpreparedness for emergencies. It also makes us soft.
The right balance is to spend our money on cool experiences, travel opportunities and material goods that afford us the most excitement, connectedness, or utility — without being wasteful or hurting ourselves in the process.
Even better if we get friends to share these moments with and make some pleasant memories. After all,
"No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it." — Seneca
This doesn't mean we're cheap.
Money isn't the issue.
It's what we're getting from an event or experience that determines its value and our readiness to invest.
Peacocking with status items and heavy expenditure is extraneous if our self-esteem comes from how we see ourselves rather than how people view us.
If we're more attuned to our purpose, loving and serving others, than trying to gain their acclaim and respect.
If we're not trying to prove a point or change people's perception of us — because that's how we go broke.
This reminds me of the story of The Spendthrift & the Swallow which goes like this…
A young fellow, who was very popular among his boon companions as a good spender, quickly wasted his fortune trying to live up to his reputation.
Then one fine day in early spring he found himself with not a penny left, and no property save the clothes he wore.
He was to meet some jolly young men that morning, and he was at his wits' end how to get enough money to keep up appearances.
Just then a Swallow flew by, twittering merrily, and the young man, thinking summer had come, hastened off to a clothes dealer, to whom he sold all the clothes he wore down to his very tunic.
A few days later a change in weather brought a severe frost; and the poor swallow and that foolish young man in his light tunic, and with his arms and knees bare, could scarcely keep life in their shivering bodies.
The core lesson of today’s entry is this,