How to Break the Circle of Money

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Just as we have the circle of life, there is also a circle of money. So what do I mean by circle of money? The circle of money is the vicious cycle of living to earn money so that we can live our life the way we want. It might sound complicated. So let me explain. We need money to live our lives. But if we need a lot of money to live our life, then we also need a lot of money. Instead, if we need less money to live our life, we need to earn less money. More so, in this circle of earning money for a livelihood, we don’t get time to live life. Because we are always chasing money. Life is not money, money and money. Then how do we break this circle of money? Let’s find out more about it in this post.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

~ Epictetus

Photo by Rupinder Singh on Unsplash

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What is Circle of Money?

I come from India, and can say with my roots in Kolkata, a city in the eastern part of India. It is the City of Joy based on the book by Dominique Lapierre. In most parts of India, people live very simple lives and enjoy the small things in life. But when I moved to the US, it was a culture shock to me. The materialism in the US is mind-boggling. Sometimes it seems people are born and live to make money and only money. Then buys stuffs and only buy stuffs. More so, the greed for money is so ubiquitous.

Recently, I came across a shady house builder in his eighties who lives in a two million dollar house and wants to take a potential gullible buyer to court just to make some easy money. Incidentally, that potential gullible buyer was me. But this post is not about lamenting on greedy rich people and their opportunistic overtures, but it is more about how this greed percolates in the society and influences the average person. Then the average person also yearns to live in the two million dollar house and learn the tactics of these unscrupulous, greedy rich people. But we all have our conscience. Not necessarily everyone would emulate them, but it drives materialism. So is materialism bad? Because the US is the land of materialism. Is that not living the American dream? So how can one live in the US without getting into the circle of money?

Why the Circle of Money?

Then we get into the question of why do we have this circle of money? Just like there is a vicious cycle of poverty that might be difficult to break, similarly, there is also the cycle of money. It is like a do loop where we earn money to meet our needs first, then our wants. Then if the wants keep on increasing, we need to jack up the generation of money to meet the ever-increasing wants. That becomes the perfect recipe for getting into the circle of money.

But don’t we get joy and happiness when we buy stuffs? Say if you buy a mansion or an extravagant sports car, don’t you get ecstatic? Is there not the thrill of of possessing them and cherishing every bit of them? Sure, it definitely sounds like it to be. But are these pleasures transients or spontaneous? Do they last longer or forever? Then what is it that gives us genuine joy that we can cherish for long enough? Something that when we are on our death-beds we can cherish in hindsight? Something that we can say is our accomplishment in life. So let’s deep dive into some causes why we get entrapped in this circle of money.

Societal Pressures

Have your neighbor, relatives, friends or peers ever influenced you for buying anything? Like, since they have bought it now you need to buy it? Suppose all your acquaintances have a big house, and you have been living in a compact rented apartment. Now you can afford to buy a big house but you feel you just don’t need it. And you prefer to live a simple and much hassle free life in an apartment instead.

But what kind of pressure does this create? Your acquaintances invite you to their big house for small get together or parties,at least but in return you cannot do the same at least with multiple families since you just don’t have that much space in your house for such gatherings. Then how do you feel? Further more, does your spouse incessantly suggest that you should also buy a big house? So that we conform with the societal etiquettes and meet the subtle expectations.

Herd Mentality

Then today we live in the world of social media. Every accomplishment, including buying a fancy dress or a make-up folks, flash instantly on Instagram or Facebook. Something to wonder, what is the purpose of flashing these pics? Is that because one feels so happy that they need to share with others? Or is it just to show-off to say see I got this, did you? Then the herd mentality in us takes over. If they have gone on a Europe tour, so we need to do as well. Does it sound familiar? Just so that you do not feel yourself as an outcast? You are also one among them.

Consumerism

Today we live in a hyper consumerist world. With digital marketing, when you search for something online, it will instantly bombard you with ads in any online media. The internet will allure to buy what you were just casually looking for. Now it will give you various options and reasoning to buy one or the other. But the bigger question is why do we fall in trap to buy? No one is forcing us to buy. We buy because we want to fill up a void in our lives. So buying stuffs gives us instant gratification just like getting a new toy. It keeps us satisfied for sometime then the void again craves for something else. Is buying stuffs the only way to satiate the voidness in us? More so, the question is also why do we have this void?

Lack of Purpose

This segues us to whether we have a meaning in life, a purpose in life. Since if we know what is the purpose of our life and we keep on working on achieving it, then we will not have this voidness in our lives. No trinkets, even if they had to be an extravagant house or a car, will spur this craving in us.

For most people, it takes a lot of introspection and exploration to find one’s calling in life. Because we all have our unique capabilities and truly we all are born to accomplish something great in life. Something that we can leave a legacy when we are no more. Or we have a feeling of fulfillment that we have accomplished something that we believe we were born for to achieve. Since when we are in our death-beds, no material possession is going to meet the requirement of this accomplishment. It is a sense of feeling and internal peace. Something that we can die with, a sense of fulfillment in life.

Procrastination

The other part of the purpose in life is that even if we can find our calling in life, we don’t go that extra mile to pursue it. It could be sheer laziness, lack of courage, determination, or tenacity. We just procrastinate. Pursuing, nurturing and then developing our passion or calling is a lot of work. If we don’t have the courage and grit to pursue it, we might not find it eventually, even if we realized what our calling was. Then again, it is easy to fall prey to the cravings and eventually materialism.

How to Break the Circle of Money

So how do we break the circle of money?According to an article by Quentin Fottrell from MarketWatch on March 4, 2018, psychologists analyzed 1.7 million people in 164 countries for earnings with life satisfaction. This accommodated differences in cost of living across countries. They found the ideal income is $60,000 to $75,000 a year for emotional well-being. Thus, we don’t really need a ton of money to live a fulfilled life. And most of the time, we make life more complicated than it really is.

I know most of us crave for retirement and keep on working to stash money for retirement. As if we are only working to retire. But what if we derive genuine joy from the work we do? And we can make enough money to live a simple life from the work we do. A life where we can meet all our basic needs, do our duties and pursue our calling in life. We don’t need to make millions to lead that life. What we truly need is, find our calling and pursue it courageously.

Conclusion on How to Break the Circle of Money

Living a simple life is difficult in today’s materialistic world. Since it takes a lot of self-control and discipline to lead one. Further more, how to break the circle of money actually entails transcending from materialism and greed. So, do you have the courage to break out of the herd and follow a life that makes sense to you? Something that you would feel genuine joy to do versus what others expect of you? Once you can discover yourself and find your meaning in life, can you let go these external expectations? To define your own expectations of yourself and walk the path of fulfilling them? And that path is the journey towards finding our fulfillment in life.

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