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Today is my 68th birthday. Today is a new day in my life. It’s 5:55 a.m..
This week was Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights and the beginning of a new year. I learned about this yesterday. We had a ceremony with a candle and some money. We were taught at the end to give the money away following the ceremony. The message was money and abundance will multiply and letting go is a catalyst for multiplication. Money is currency, it’s energy, it is meant to be circulated, it is not to be held, it is to be spent. Like the current in a river, it flows, energy circulates, it comes back, it continues to generate more energy and it is important to unblock it and keep it moving. It comes back to fuel our lives.
Let’s talk about money. The subject is taboo. According to our culture, this is what I was taught as a child and a young person. Money is scarce, it is to be saved, not spent. My father was famously frugal. There’s a difference between frugal and cheap. As a child, especially as a teenager and young adult, I didn’t see or know the difference, but I was never deprived of things I needed or wanted. (Perhaps my mother had the reins on spending for the children. )
What I know is I never had a job until college. Then, I took a job in the dish room because I wanted to show my parents I could be independent. I could show them that it would be to their advantage to let me move, change colleges, to attend Purdue (a state school) from Ohio Wesleyan (a private school).
I followed my then boyfriend, my first serious boyfriend, to his graduate school. I remember the phone call I had built an argument I thought was very persuasive about the cost of my private college at $5000/year vs a state school (I don’t remember $/year) but it was less.
I was fiscally irresponsible. I wrote checks that bounced. I spent way more at bars and clothing stores than in the bookstore. I would make the call when my cash ran out and get another $400 infusion of cash. My friends and roommate would marvel at the amount my parents would send. They would get an allowance of $100 a month and I would get $400 when I asked. I had no consciousness of stewardship or budgeting or limits on my spending.
I also had no consciousness of why I was in school or what I was in school for. I just remember loving the “independence” of having no supervision or custodial care. I was an adult. In reality I was an unsupervised child. My mission in life was to have fun. My mission in life was to find love.
I suppose it was when I went off on my own after graduating with a degree in art from a major engineering school that the hard stuff of life and money came creeping in.
I was transferred to Washington DC in 1979 for an impressive $13,500 per year. I fancied Georgetown to live. After all, I lived in a hotel room and upper Georgetown for the first 30 days of my tenure in DC.
I found an amazing, remarkably tiny and charming apartment and a prime location on N Street. In retrospect, I was tenacious, curious, clever, and driven to live in Georgetown. Not one to do things in a traditional, proven way, I sat out on foot to tred the cobblestones searching for a dwelling. Buildings with plaques and a phone number were my quarry. Thinking that would be the key to finding a vacancy I called management companies asking if there were “vacancies ” available in the buildings commemorated in brass on the face.
It didn’t occur to me that condominiums were owned not rented.
As luck would have it, I connected with a property manager who was also a multi unit building owner. Upon hearing my naïve inquiry, he invited me to meet and see an apartment in his home. Today that might be cautioned against, but I was smitten. I signed a lease for a whopping $360 per month. I was a Georgetown resident.
Money was still something I wanted and needed. It was on two ends of the spectrum of need and want never meeting in the middle as a medium that keeps things flowing. Never was money currency it would come in and go out, that’s it. Come in, go out. It was all “spoken for” and never enough.
It was a source of pain and discomfort. I always wanted what I wanted and at the end of the month I would still owe more.
I wished, I could just earn more but I thought I never would.
I didn’t realize I had an “unworthy” message embedded in my psyche. I felt deep down I was not worthy.
As I languish here in the memory of what was, I realize I had an “unworthy” of love message upon which the unworthy of money message was built.
This is a key understanding to unlock the crypt of happiness. Today, 40+ years later, I have emerged from within the crypt which held my unworthy message.
What I know now is I have a healthy relationship with money. Yes, I have a relationship with money. I no longer fear money, money is my friend. Money nourishes, feeds me – it fuels my life. I have money coming in passively from Social Security and retirement. I have money coming in actively from my real estate business. I’m interested in creating other “streams” of income.
I want to build diversity into my sources of income. Diversity will give me flexibility when times are tough. It’s a fact that expenses will increase into perpetuity, so it’s important to create more streams over the course of a lifetime. It is the end of the era of finite accumulation of wealth. It is the era of wealth creation and generation. It is the era of enough. No longer the era of more than you could ever use or need.
Wealth is an abundance of the fuel necessary to live. Actively creating streams of income in the second half is a joyful pursuit. The healthiest way to create this is by tapping into your inner passions. If you are creative create. If you are a teacher, teach. If you are a writer, write. Share what you have and you will be rewarded. Examine your inner self. Dust him or her off. Shed your “unworthy” garments. They are masking the wealth generator inside.
Inside there is someone who can generate ideas, products or services of value. Pay no attention to the thoughts of lack. Pay no attention to the ego that sounds the alarm of fear and doubt. As Nike says, JUST DO IT.
Go out today with your eyes, ears and heart open. Give away money freely to someone who needs it. Unblock the channel. Spend money on something beautiful that will “spark joy” every time you see it. Buy a piece of clothing that makes you feel wonderful every time you put it on.
Let go of money. It will come back to you in waves.
Walking this path I have uncloaked my worth, my value, my unique incomparables. We all have them. Inside is the one and only you. Let her/him work for you! Offer your insights. Share your passion. Keep the currency flowing. Invest in yourself. You are worth it and you have plenty of time.
This is Graceing Agefully.
Well said, Jen!